Covington Elementary School

Covington, WA · Grades ?–5

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

Middle 40% decoded

#297 of 680

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA schools

Performing as Expected

#705 in WA

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Middle 40% achievement

#367 of 680

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA schools

#638 in WA

places from achievement to Decoded Rank

This school performs roughly as expected for its context.

Data confidence:High412 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: #297 of 680

in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA schools

Raw test scores rank this school #367, but after accounting for context, students here outperform what the data would predict. The Decoded Rank places it at #297.

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?

  • Above averageStudents gain ground year over yearCounts for 30% of the rank

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

  • Below averageEquity within the schoolCounts for 15% of the rank

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

  • About averageDirection 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.

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 35%47-0.9
Students gain ground year over year 30%72+6.7
Equity within the school 15%32-2.8
Direction over recent years 10%50+0.0
Most students were tested 10%97+4.7

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 →

All Rankings

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

ScopeAchievementDecodedShift
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA (680 schools)#367#297
WA (1506 schools)#638#705
Among similar schools (6 peers)#5#3

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
456
Free/reduced-price lunch
52.0%
Student-teacher ratio
15.7:1
Locale
Suburb, large
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$91,688ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
0.1%ACS tract proxy
SES index
57.5
Assessment data year
2025
CCD year
2024
ACS vintage
2020-2024

Within Kent School District: #6 of 36.Top quintile 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.

Students at this school are broadly spread across proficiency levels.

  • Level 1 — Below standard25%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard25%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)27%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard22%

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.

SchoolAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Kentwood High School Rankings coming soon.
Mattson Middle School#435#656Medium
Meridian Elementary School#318#459High
Horizon Elementary School#503#596High
Crestwood Elementary School#323#609High

Similar Schools

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

SchoolAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Ridgecrest Elementary#279#259High
North Star Elementary#352#372High
Martin Sortun Elementary School#344#602High
Sultan Middle School#420#300High
Vossbeck Elementary School#5#9High

Historical Ranks

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

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2025#367#297
2024#401#292
2023#370#255

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

Trajectory

2023: percentile 462024: percentile 382025: percentile 47

Holding steady

Based on 3 years (2023–2025).

Slope: +0.5 pct/yr (95% CI -60.8 to 61.8)

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.

Cohort Progression

Kids who started 3rd grade here in 2015 lost 8 proficiency points by 6th grade.

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

Learning rate: +3.8 proficiency points/yr (95% CI -5.0 to 12.6)

Medium confidence

Cohort 20152016201720182019202320242025 Slope
ELA · started 6th in 2015
G6
300
ELA · started 5th in 2015
G5
248
G6
286
+38.8
ELA · started 4th in 2015
G4
210
G5
254
G6
256
+22.9
ELA · started 3rd in 2015
G3
236
G4
212
G5
227
G6
228
-1.0
ELA · started 3rd in 2016
G3
244
G4
202
G5
229
G6
282
+14.0
ELA · started 3rd in 2017
G3
252
G4
241
G5
253
+0.3
ELA · started 3rd in 2018
G3
249
G4
228
-21.5
ELA · started 3rd in 2019
G3
268
ELA · started 6th in 2023
G6
258
ELA · started 5th in 2023
G5
232
ELA · started 4th in 2023
G4
245
G5
243
-2.5
ELA · started 3rd in 2023
G3
241
G4
242
G5
231
-5.0
ELA · started 3rd in 2024
G3
216
G4
246
+30.2
ELA · started 3rd in 2025
G3
226
Math · started 6th in 2015
G6
264
Math · started 5th in 2015
G5
252
G6
270
+18.8
Math · started 4th in 2015
G4
195
G5
240
G6
266
+35.7
Math · started 3rd in 2015
G3
231
G4
227
G5
211
G6
232
-1.4
Math · started 3rd in 2016
G3
276
G4
204
G5
204
G6
248
-8.1
Math · started 3rd in 2017
G3
263
G4
242
G5
241
-11.1
Math · started 3rd in 2018
G3
255
G4
246
-9.2
Math · started 3rd in 2019
G3
299
Math · started 6th in 2023
G6
235
Math · started 5th in 2023
G5
217
Math · started 4th in 2023
G4
260
G5
234
-25.8
Math · started 3rd in 2023
G3
248
G4
245
G5
251
+1.6
Math · started 3rd in 2024
G3
227
G4
243
+15.9
Math · started 3rd in 2025
G3
273

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.

Shrunk Alpha (95% CI)
-0.04 (95% CI: -0.09 to +0.01)

SES index components

SES method
Blended SES index (ACS + FRL)
SES index value
57.5
FRL %
52.0%
ELL %
SPED %
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$91,688
Tract poverty rate
0.1%
Tract % bachelor's+
33.1%

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
May 29, 2026
Methodology version
0.2.0

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