Stevens Middle School

Pasco, WA · Grades 6–8

Kennewick-Richland, WA

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

Top 30% decoded

#12 of 68

Kennewick-Richland, WA schools

★ Above Expected

#382 in WA

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Bottom 30% achievement

#58 of 68

Kennewick-Richland, WA schools

#1463 in WA

places from achievement to Decoded Rank

This school's raw scores understate its performance — it ranks much higher after adjusting for context.

Data confidence:High1808 students tested 8 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: #12 of 68

in Kennewick-Richland, WA schools

Raw test scores rank this school #58, but after accounting for context, students here outperform what the data would predict. The Decoded Rank places it at #12.

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?

  • StrongEquity 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.

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%53+1.0
Students gain ground year over year 30%71+6.2
Equity within the school 15%88+5.7
Direction over recent years 10%100+5.0
Most students were tested 10%98+4.8

Note: this school's Alpha-only Decoded Rank is #33 (vs the composite #12). The composite includes cohort progression and other signals that diverge from the context-adjusted Alpha. See methodology.

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
Kennewick-Richland, WA (68 schools)#58#12
WA (1506 schools)#1463#382
Among similar schools (6 peers)#4#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
956
Free/reduced-price lunch
91.7%
Student-teacher ratio
18.7:1
Locale
Suburb, large
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$40,331ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
0.3%ACS tract proxy
SES index
1.6
Assessment data year
2025
CCD year
2024
ACS vintage
2020-2024

Within Pasco School District: #3 of 20.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 cluster closely on the proficiency ladder.

  • Level 1 — Below standard57%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard25%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)14%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard5%

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
Rowena Chess Elementary#67#34Medium
Emerson Elementary#66#22High
Robert Frost Elementary#57#20High
Pasco Senior High School Rankings coming soon.
Captain Gray STEM Elementary#68#53High

Similar Schools

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

SchoolAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Amistad Elementary School#65#45High
Ellen Ochoa Middle School#64#47High
Lewis & Clark Middle School#44#13High
Franklin Middle School#27#47High
Grandview Middle School#24#5High

Historical Ranks

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

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2025#58#12
2024#59#39
2023#56#37

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

Trajectory

2023: percentile 312024: percentile 252025: percentile 53

Trending up

Based on 3 years (2023–2025).

Slope: +10.8 pct/yr (95% CI -115.3 to 136.8)

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 6th grade here in 2015 gained 32 proficiency points by 8th grade — gaining while the metro median is declining.

Based on 14 cohorts across math + ELA.

Learning rate: +4.8 proficiency points/yr (95% CI 0.5 to 9.2)

Cohort 20152016201720182019202320242025 Slope
ELA · started 8th in 2015
G8
194
ELA · started 7th in 2015
G7
192
G8
215
+22.8
ELA · started 6th in 2015
G6
160
G7
175
G8
192
+16.0
ELA · started 7th in 2017
G7
182
G8
194
+12.0
ELA · started 7th in 2018
G7
189
G8
189
-0.8
ELA · started 7th in 2019
G7
193
ELA · started 8th in 2023
G8
163
ELA · started 7th in 2023
G7
179
G8
182
+3.1
ELA · started 6th in 2023
G6
173
G7
185
G8
194
+10.5
ELA · started 6th in 2024
G6
150
G7
173
+23.2
ELA · started 6th in 2025
G6
154
Math · started 8th in 2015
G8
169
Math · started 7th in 2015
G7
198
G8
200
+2.5
Math · started 6th in 2015
G6
157
G7
186
G8
171
+6.9
Math · started 7th in 2017
G7
164
G8
170
+6.1
Math · started 7th in 2018
G7
168
G8
161
-7.6
Math · started 7th in 2019
G7
178
Math · started 8th in 2023
G8
155
Math · started 7th in 2023
G7
160
G8
146
-13.6
Math · started 6th in 2023
G6
160
G7
158
G8
161
+0.8
Math · started 6th in 2024
G6
145
G7
145
-0.6
Math · started 6th in 2025
G6
156

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)
-0.14 (95% CI: -0.16 to -0.12)

SES index components

SES method
Blended SES index (ACS + FRL)
SES index value
1.6
FRL %
91.7%
ELL %
SPED %
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$40,331
Tract poverty rate
0.3%
Tract % bachelor's+
6.4%

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 →