Columbia Junior High School
Tacoma, WA · Grades 8–9
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA
NeighborhoodDecoded Rank
All factors combined
Middle 40% decoded
#223 of 680
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA schools
Performing as Expected
#488 in WA
Achievement Rank
Raw test performance
Bottom 30% achievement
#506 of 680
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA schools
#1032 in WA
Typical Profile
This school performs roughly as expected for its context.
Data confidence:High640 students tested 8 years97% 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: #223 of 680
in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA schools
Raw test scores rank this school #506, but after accounting for context, students here outperform what the data would predict. The Decoded Rank places it at #223.
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 35% of the rank
After accounting for income and demographics, does this school beat what the data would predict?
- Thin dataStudents gain ground year over yearCounts for 30% of the rank
Are kids at this school learning faster than typical for the metro?
- Above averageEquity within the schoolCounts for 15% of the rank
Are students clustered at similar levels, or split between top and bottom?
- StrongDirection over recent yearsCounts for 10% of the rank
Is this school's Decoded Rank trending up or down across the years we have data for?
- StrongMost students were testedCounts for 10% 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.
| Component | Weight | Percentile | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Performs above what its context predicts | 35% | 54 | +1.3 |
| Students gain ground year over year · thin data | 30% | 50 | +0.0 |
| Equity within the school | 15% | 63 | +1.9 |
| Direction over recent years | 10% | 100 | +5.0 |
| Most students were tested | 10% | 97 | +4.7 |
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 →
All Rankings
How this school ranks across the metro, state, and among demographic peers.
| Scope | Achievement | Decoded | Shift |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA (680 schools) | #506 | #223 | |
| WA (1506 schools) | #1032 | #488 | |
| Among similar schools (6 peers) | #2 | #2 |
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
- 619
- Free/reduced-price lunch
- 56.7%
- Student-teacher ratio
- 21.3:1
- Locale
- Suburb, large
- School type
- Regular public school
- Enrollment model
- Neighborhood attendance area
- Neighborhood median income
- $86,156ACS tract proxy
- Neighborhood poverty
- 0.1%ACS tract proxy
- SES index
- 40.0
- Assessment data year
- 2025
- CCD year
- 2024
- ACS vintage
- 2020-2024
High School Outcomes
Latest available dataGraduation 2025 · Coursework 2021 · AP exams 2015 · SAT/ACT 2021
- Advanced options
- Dual credit
- 5 students in advanced math · CRDC 2021
Data limitations
- Graduation uses state cohort data. Coursework, offerings, and SAT/ACT counts use the latest available federal CRDC extracts, which can lag current graduation data.
- SAT/ACT data is count-only in this extract; without an enrollment denominator, we do not treat it as a participation rate.
- HS Decoded Rank is alpha-only: it summarizes how the school's grade 10/11 test scores compare to expectations from its demographic context, ranked against other HSs in the same metro / state / rural cohort. Graduation, AP, and SAT/ACT data above are descriptive context — they are not yet blended into the composite rank.
Within Fife School District: #2 of 4. 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.
Students at this school are typically spread across proficiency levels.
- Level 1 — Below standard34%
- Level 2 — Approaching standard28%
- Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)26%
- Level 4 — Exceeds standard13%
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.
- Fife Elementary School0.5 mi
- Fife High School0.5 mi
- Fife Open Doors0.6 mi
- Roosevelt Elementary School2.1 mi
- Lister Elementary School2.4 mi
| School | Achievement | Decoded | Shift | Story | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fife Elementary School | #471 | #127 | ★★Outperforming Expectations | High | |
| Fife High School | Rankings coming soon. | ||||
| Fife Open Doors | Rankings coming soon. | ||||
| Roosevelt Elementary School | #644 | #502 | Lower by Both Measures | High | |
| Lister Elementary School | #647 | #145 | ★★Outperforming Expectations | High | |
Similar Schools
Schools with comparable demographics, income, and size. Both rank columns shown for direct comparison.
| School | Achievement | Decoded | Shift | Story | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| James W Lintott Elementary School | Rankings coming soon. | ||||
| Westwood Middle School | #96 | #76 | Typical Profile | High | |
| Rochester High School | Rankings coming soon. | ||||
| Royal High School | Rankings coming soon. | ||||
| Surprise Lake Middle School | #549 | #340 | Typical Profile | High | |
Historical Ranks
Year-by-year decoded and achievement ranks. Pandemic-affected years are excluded — we don't interpolate scores across the gap.
| Year | Achievement | Decoded | Shift |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | #506 | #223 | |
| 2024 | #545 | #428 | |
| 2023 | #544 | #411 |
Note: assessment transitions (where a state changes its test) are footnoted on the methodology page; trends are not computed across breakpoints.
Trajectory
Trending up
Based on 3 years (2023–2025).
Slope: +8.3 pct/yr (95% CI -66.3 to 82.8)
Low confidence
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.
Growth / Learning Rate
Not published by Washington.
Growth measures year-over-year progress for the same students tracked across grades — it needs longitudinal student-level records that the state has but doesn't release at the school level. Some states (CA, ID, TN) do publish this; Washington doesn't.
For this school, SchoolDecoder shows multi-year context another way: the Historical Ranks section below tracks how the school's Decoded Rank has moved over the years we have data for, and the Subject Rankings above break out math vs. ELA performance per grade. Both are cross-sectional, not the same as growth, but together they cover most of what a parent would use growth data for.
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.
- Shrunk Alpha (95% CI)
- +0.04 (95% CI: +0.03 to +0.05)
SES index components
- SES method
- Blended SES index (ACS + FRL)
- SES index value
- 40.0
- FRL %
- 56.7%
- ELL %
- —
- SPED %
- —
- Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
- $86,156
- Tract poverty rate
- 0.1%
- Tract % bachelor's+
- 21.7%
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.