Wahitis Elementary School

Othello, WA · Grades K–6

Othello, WA

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

5 stars

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

Top 15% decoded

#164 of 1502

plausibly #115–238

Washington schools

#1 · Othello metro

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Middle 40% achievement

#746 of 1502

Washington schools

#2 · Othello metro

places from achievement to Decoded Rank

Scores look modest, yet the school does better than its context predicts and students tend to gain ground over time.

Data confidence:High673 students tested 8 years100% 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: #164 of 1502

in Washington schools

Raw test scores rank this school #746, but after accounting for context, students here outperform what the data would predict. The Decoded Rank places it at #164.

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

  • StrongPerforms 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?

  • Below averageEquity 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%99+19.2
Students gain ground year over year 33%73+7.6
Equity within the school 17%34-2.6
Most students were tested 11%100+5.5

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

    2024 proficiency34.1%meeting standard

    Tested gradeGrade 5

    88 tested

    202248.4%202336.5%202434.1%

    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 (1502 schools)#746#164
Othello, WA (9 schools)#2#1
Among similar schools (6 peers)#1#1

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
586
Free/reduced-price lunch
82.8%
Student-teacher ratio
15.8:1
Locale
Rural, fringe
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$67,255ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
29.2%ACS tract proxy
SES index
11.1
Assessment data year
2024
CCD year
2023
ACS vintage
2020-2024

Within Othello School District: #1 of 5.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 standard29%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard28%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)21%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard21%

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
Scootney Springs Elementary#6#4High
Early Childhood CenterRankings coming soon
McFarland Middle School#8#6High
Desert Oasis High SchoolRanking unavailable
Lutacaga Elementary#9#5High

Similar Schools

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

SchoolRatingAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Midway Elementary#675#449High
Wildwood Elementary School#557#410High
Scootney Springs Elementary#6#4High
Chief Kamiakin Elementary School#35#32High
Wahluke Junior High#25#16High

Historical Ranks

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

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2024#2#1
2023#2#2

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 1002024: percentile 100

Holding steady

Based on 2 years (2023–2024).

Slope: +0.0 pct/yr (no CI — too few years)

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 2023 lost 19 proficiency points by 4th grade — gaining, versus a metro median of about 0/yr.

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

Learning rate: +0.2 proficiency points/yr (95% CI -7.0 to 7.3)

Medium confidence

Cohort 20152016201720182019202220232024 Slope
ELA · started 5th in 2015
G5
183
—
ELA · started 4th in 2015
G4
176
G5
199
+22.6
ELA · started 4th in 2016
G4
233
G5
231
-1.7
ELA · started 3rd in 2016
G3
200
G4
220
G5
225
+12.3
ELA · started 3rd in 2017
G3
185
G4
214
G5
232
+23.2
ELA · started 3rd in 2018
G3
213
G4
214
+0.8
ELA · started 3rd in 2019
G3
200
G6
217
+5.6
ELA · started 5th in 2022
G5
272
G6
257
-15.7
ELA · started 4th in 2022
G4
221
G5
275
G6
252
+15.7
ELA · started 3rd in 2022
G3
202
G4
227
G5
238
+17.5
ELA · started 3rd in 2023
G3
212
G4
193
-18.6
ELA · started 3rd in 2024
G3
226
—
Math · started 5th in 2015
G5
225
—
Math · started 4th in 2015
G4
226
G5
240
+14.2
Math · started 4th in 2016
G4
272
G5
261
-10.9
Math · started 3rd in 2016
G3
244
G4
260
G5
253
+4.6
Math · started 3rd in 2017
G3
275
G4
265
G5
260
-7.7
Math · started 3rd in 2018
G3
276
G4
248
-27.9
Math · started 3rd in 2019
G3
241
G6
211
-10.1
Math · started 5th in 2022
G5
275
G6
237
-38.7
Math · started 4th in 2022
G4
228
G5
264
G6
257
+14.4
Math · started 3rd in 2022
G3
246
G4
240
G5
241
-2.4
Math · started 3rd in 2023
G3
238
G4
215
-22.7
Math · started 3rd in 2024
G3
259
—

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
11.1
FRL %
82.8%
ELL %
53.9% · WA OSPI Report Card Enrollment
SPED %
13.7% · WA OSPI Report Card Enrollment
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$67,255
Tract poverty rate
29.2%
Tract % bachelor's+
11.2%

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
2023–24 school year
NCES CCD vintage
2023
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 →