Westgate Elementary

Edmonds, WA · Grades K–6

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

3 stars

WA statewide rating — the rank below is this school's statewide position

Middle 40% decoded

#836 of 1506

plausibly #498–1130

Washington schools

#397 · Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Middle 40% achievement

#484 of 1506

Washington schools

#311 · Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro

places from achievement to Decoded Rank

Raw scores are modest, but students tend to gain ground relative to peers while enrolled.

Data confidence:High520 students tested 9 years98% participation

Confidence is computed from sample size, year coverage, and participation rate. Higher confidence means the rank shift is stable across years and not driven by a single small cohort.

  • Tested students: total students with valid scores across all reported years.
  • Years of data: number of school years included. More years smooths year-to-year noise.
  • Participation: share of enrolled students who took the assessment. Low participation can bias scores.

What's driving this rank

Decoded Rank: #836 of 1506

in Washington schools

Raw test scores rank this school #484, but families here have higher-than-average income and educational attainment, so the expected score is also high. After accounting for context, this school performs about as predicted — the Decoded Rank is #836.

Each component below is scored on a 0–100 within-metro scale. A qualitative band summarizes where the school lands.

  • About averagePerforms above what its context predictsCounts for 39% of the rank

    After accounting for income and demographics, does this school beat what the data would predict?

  • Above averageStudents gain ground year over yearCounts for 33% of the rank

    Are kids at this school learning faster than typical for the metro?

  • LowEquity within the schoolCounts for 17% of the rank

    Are students clustered at similar levels, or split between top and bottom?

  • StrongMost students were testedCounts for 11% of the rank

    Was the rank computed against a representative share of the school's students?

Show the numbersFor the methodology-curious

Each component is converted to a 0–100 within-metro percentile (100 = top of the metro). "Contribution" is the percentile-points the component adds to (or subtracts from) the metro median before the schools are re-ranked into the composite.

Per-component contributions to this school's Decoded Rank composite. Weight is the share each component carries; percentile is the school's within-metro score on that component.
ComponentWeightPercentileContribution
Performs above what its context predicts 39%41-3.4
Students gain ground year over year 33%68+5.9
Equity within the school 17%14-6.0
Most students were tested 11%98+5.3

How the Decoded Rank composite is computed

Why trust this?
  • Public data sources
  • Context-adjusted model
  • Confidence shown
  • Methodology published

This score uses state assessment data, NCES enrollment data, and Census ACS 5-year neighborhood data. The Decoded Rank adjusts for school context — student demographics, ELL/SPED service rates, and the socioeconomic profile of the surrounding tract — and shows how the school performs relative to expectation, not in absolute terms.

SchoolDecoder is one signal, not a verdict. Decoded Rank is a context-adjusted residual, not a causal claim about teaching quality. See full methodology →

Strongest Subjects (Decoded)

Decoded rank first; achievement rank in parentheses. Sorted by decoded rank, best first. Science is shown for reference only and is not part of any rank, tier, or composite.

  1. Science

    2025 proficiency58.6%meeting standard

    Tested gradeGrade 5

    70 tested

    202247.3%202344.9%202465.6%202558.6%

    Shown for reference only — science is not part of any rank.

All Rankings

How this school ranks across the metro, state, and among demographic peers.

ScopeAchievementDecodedShift
WA (1506 schools)#484#836
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA (679 schools)#311#397
Among similar schools (6 peers)#5#5

Resource context

School inputs, not ranking points

These fields describe the school and surrounding neighborhood. They help readers interpret the page, but this is not a dollar-by-dollar or ratio-by-ratio scorecard and the fields here are not components of the Decoded Rank.

Enrollment
472
Free/reduced-price lunch
37.5%
Student-teacher ratio
15.2:1
Locale
Suburb, large
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$148,934ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
8.3%ACS tract proxy
SES index
74.4
Assessment data year
2025
CCD year
2024
ACS vintage
2020-2024

Within Edmonds School District: #18 of 25.Bottom-40% in district. View district

Performance Spread

How students are distributed across the four state-assessment proficiency levels — L1: below standard, L2: approaching, L3: meets (proficient), L4: exceeds. This describes the shape of results at the school, not their height.

Two distinct groups are visible: a strong cluster at the top and a struggling cluster at the bottom.

  • Level 1 — Below standard24%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard23%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)22%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard31%

Why this matters. A bimodal distribution often reflects two student populations served side-by-side (for example a gifted or honors track alongside a general-population cohort). Aggregate scores can hide this. Look at the school's program mix when comparing.

Performance Spread measures how evenly students are distributed across the L1..L4 proficiency ladder, treating the levels as an ordered scale (L1=1, L2=2, L3=3, L4=4) and weighting each by its student share. A school where most students cluster at one level has a TIGHT spread; a school split between the bottom and top has a WIDE or BIMODAL spread. Bimodal fires only when BOTH tails are non-trivial AND the middle is relatively hollow (pct_L1 ≥ 15, pct_L4 ≥ 25, pct_L2 + pct_L3 ≤ 60). It describes shape — NOT how high the school's scores are. Methodology

Nearby Schools

Sorted by distance. Both rank columns shown so you can compare quickly.

SchoolRatingAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Sherwood Elementary#211#281High
Chase Lake Elementary#527#390High
Scriber Lake High SchoolRanking unavailable
Edmonds Heights K-12Rank withheld
Madrona K-8 SchoolRank withheld

Similar Schools

Schools with comparable demographics, income, and size. Both rank columns shown for direct comparison.

SchoolRatingAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Briarcrest Elementary#200#278High
Lakeland Hills Elementary#243#315High
Kennydale Elementary School#312#520High
Emerald Elementary School#37#50High
Phantom Lake Elementary#233#247High

Historical Ranks

Year-by-year decoded and achievement ranks. Pandemic-affected years are excluded — we don't interpolate scores across the gap.

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2025#311#397
2024#311#348
2023#287#286

Note: assessment transitions (where a state changes its test) are footnoted on the methodology page; trends are not computed across breakpoints.

Trajectory

Not used in the Decoded Rank — shown for context only.

2023: percentile 572024: percentile 482025: percentile 38

Trending down sharply

Based on 3 years (2023–2025).

Slope: -9.5 pct/yr (95% CI -10.1 to -8.9)

How this works: we fit a linear trend across the available years of Decoded percentile, then bucket the slope into a direction. Wide confidence intervals (uncertain trends) collapse to Holding steady. See the methodology page for thresholds.

Cohort Progression

Kids who started 3rd grade here in 2024 lost 13 proficiency points by 4th grade — declining, versus a metro median of about 0/yr.

Cohort-to-cohort variance is high — interpret the headline cautiously.

Learning rate: -1.6 proficiency points/yr (95% CI -9.3 to 6.1)

Medium confidence

Cohort 201520162017201820192022202320242025 Slope
ELA · started 6th in 2015
G6
279
—
ELA · started 5th in 2015
G5
276
G6
295
+18.4
ELA · started 4th in 2015
G4
293
G5
295
G6
293
-0.3
ELA · started 3rd in 2015
G3
278
G4
259
G5
269
G6
267
-2.3
ELA · started 3rd in 2016
G3
316
G4
301
G5
303
G6
299
-5.1
ELA · started 3rd in 2017
G3
297
G4
261
G5
288
-4.6
ELA · started 3rd in 2018
G3
292
G4
272
-20.3
ELA · started 3rd in 2019
G3
293
G6
247
-15.3
ELA · started 5th in 2022
G5
223
G6
275
+51.8
ELA · started 4th in 2022
G4
248
G5
242
G6
242
-2.8
ELA · started 3rd in 2022
G3
291
G4
305
G5
272
G6
306
+1.3
ELA · started 3rd in 2023
G3
262
G4
252
G5
262
+0.4
ELA · started 3rd in 2024
G3
281
G4
268
-13.1
ELA · started 3rd in 2025
G3
255
—
Math · started 6th in 2015
G6
265
—
Math · started 5th in 2015
G5
282
G6
289
+7.0
Math · started 4th in 2015
G4
285
G5
291
G6
293
+4.0
Math · started 3rd in 2015
G3
290
G4
297
G5
290
G6
295
+0.9
Math · started 3rd in 2016
G3
301
G4
296
G5
285
G6
307
+0.8
Math · started 3rd in 2017
G3
317
G4
276
G5
287
-15.3
Math · started 3rd in 2018
G3
305
G4
272
-32.8
Math · started 3rd in 2019
G3
298
G6
245
-17.6
Math · started 5th in 2022
G5
229
G6
278
+49.0
Math · started 4th in 2022
G4
242
G5
206
G6
239
-1.7
Math · started 3rd in 2022
G3
287
G4
322
G5
272
G6
294
-2.9
Math · started 3rd in 2023
G3
235
G4
248
G5
226
-4.3
Math · started 3rd in 2024
G3
273
G4
258
-14.5
Math · started 3rd in 2025
G3
241
—

How this works: we follow each grade-cohort across years through the school (3rd graders in 2023 are 4th graders in 2024, etc.) and fit a linear slope on a 100–400 proficiency-points scale built from the state assessment's four levels (L1=1, L2=2, L3=3, L4=4, weighted by student share). This is the same construction Stanford SEDA uses (edopportunity.org/methods); it's not student-level tracking — we measure the school's cohort, not individuals. See the methodology page for thresholds.

Evidence & technical detailClick to expand

School Alpha

School Alpha is the residual between actual and expected performance once school context is held constant. It is a context-adjusted estimate, not a causal claim about teaching quality. Its reliability shows up on the page as the confidence label and the rank interval, not as a standalone statistic.

SES index components

SES method
Blended SES index (ACS + FRL)
SES index value
74.4
FRL %
37.5%
ELL %
22.9% · WA OSPI Report Card Enrollment
SPED %
13.2% · WA OSPI Report Card Enrollment
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$148,934
Tract poverty rate
8.3%
Tract % bachelor's+
44.6%

What "Decoded Rank" means

Decoded Rank converts School Alpha — the context-adjusted residual — into a parent-facing rank within the metro pool. A higher Decoded Rank than Achievement Rank means the school's raw scores understate its performance once neighborhood and school context are held constant. The reverse means raw scores overstate it. The rank is one signal, not a verdict.

Data & sources

Assessment data
2024–25 school year
NCES CCD vintage
2024
Census ACS 5-year vintage
2020-2024
Last updated
September 4, 2026
Methodology version
0.14.0
Source files (3)

SchoolDecoder publishes context-adjusted residuals, not causal estimates. Decoded Rank is one signal — not a verdict on teaching quality. Read about limitations →