Pe Ell School

Pe Ell, WA · Grades ?–12

Centralia, WA

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

Middle 40% decoded

#14 of 27

plausibly #12–14

Centralia, WA schools

Performing as Expected

#790 in WA

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Middle 40% achievement

#16 of 27

Centralia, WA schools

#1083 in WA

places from achievement to Decoded Rank

Scores look modest, yet students tend to gain ground relative to peers the longer they are enrolled.

Data confidence:Medium199 students tested 6 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: #14 of 27

in Centralia, WA schools

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

  • LowPerforms 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?

  • StrongStudents 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?

  • Thin dataDirection 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%19-11.0
Students gain ground year over year 30%85+10.6
Equity within the school 15%93+6.4
Direction over recent years · thin data10%50+0.0
Most students were tested 10%100+5.0

Note: this school's Alpha-only Decoded Rank is #23 (vs the composite #14). 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
Centralia, WA (27 schools)#16#14
WA (1503 schools)#1083#790
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
271
Free/reduced-price lunch
66.1%
Student-teacher ratio
13.6:1
Locale
Rural, remote
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$88,179ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
0.1%ACS tract proxy
SES index
41.3
Assessment data year
2023
CCD year
2022
ACS vintage
2020-2024

High School Outcomes

Latest available data

Graduation 2023

HS Decoded Rank #1 of 11 among high schools in this metro

Context-adjusted

Achievement vs. demographic expectation

Top 5%

★★★ Exceptional

Achievement

Raw test performance

Top 5%

This is context-adjusted achievement (Alpha) — how grade 10–11 scores compare to expectations from the school's demographics. It is not the growth-based composite shown for elementary and middle schools, because a single-tested-grade high school has no consecutive-grade cohort to measure growth from.

Graduation
73%
2023 cohort · 85% extended

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. The achievement-vs-decoded quadrant below plots context-adjusted ACHIEVEMENT (alpha) against raw achievement; it is NOT the growth-based composite shown for elementary and middle schools, because a single-tested-grade high school has no consecutive-grade cohort ladder from which to build a growth signal.

Within Pe Ell School District: #1 of 1. 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 standard34%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard29%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)28%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard8%

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
Trojan Alternative School Rankings coming soon.
Boistfort Elem#24#16Low
Adna Middle/High School#10#27Also HS #9High
Adna Elementary School#1#11High
Lewis County Jail Rankings coming soon.

Similar Schools

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

SchoolAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Richland School District Early Learning Center Rankings coming soon.
Kettle Falls High School Rankings coming soon.
Early Learning Center Rankings coming soon.
Curlew Elem & High School Rankings coming soon.
Crescent School#8#8Also HS #6Medium

Historical Ranks

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

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2023#16#14

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

Trajectory

Not enough years yet

Trajectory will appear with 2025-26 data once we have two or more years of rankings for this school.

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 2019 lost 13 proficiency points by 7th grade — declining, versus a metro median of about 0/yr.

Based on 18 cohorts across math + ELA.

Learning rate: -3.9 proficiency points/yr (95% CI -10.5 to 2.8)

Medium confidence

Cohort 201520162017201820192023 Slope
ELA · started 8th in 2015
G8
226
ELA · started 7th in 2015
G7
265
G8
226
-38.4
ELA · started 6th in 2015
G6
212
G7
255
G8
258
+23.1
ELA · started 5th in 2015
G5
237
G6
240
G7
270
G8
235
+2.3
ELA · started 4th in 2015
G4
216
G5
225
G6
236
G7
282
G8
288
+20.2
ELA · started 3rd in 2015
G3
235
G4
237
G5
300
G6
265
G7
300
+15.7
ELA · started 3rd in 2016
G3
284
G4
233
G5
269
G6
263
G10
276
+1.6
ELA · started 3rd in 2017
G3
245
G4
264
G5
258
+6.3
ELA · started 3rd in 2018
G3
269
G4
258
G8
214
-11.0
ELA · started 3rd in 2019
G3
240
G7
227
-3.3
ELA · started 6th in 2023
G6
229
ELA · started 5th in 2023
G5
190
ELA · started 4th in 2023
G4
183
Math · started 8th in 2015
G8
174
Math · started 7th in 2015
G7
235
G8
216
-19.5
Math · started 6th in 2015
G6
188
G7
205
G8
200
+5.9
Math · started 5th in 2015
G5
233
G6
192
G7
217
G8
174
-15.3
Math · started 4th in 2015
G4
253
G5
229
G6
195
G7
229
G8
212
-8.1
Math · started 3rd in 2015
G3
294
G4
263
G5
259
G6
212
G7
240
-16.0
Math · started 3rd in 2016
G3
300
G4
306
G5
288
G6
250
-16.8
Math · started 3rd in 2017
G3
300
G4
283
G5
269
-15.4
Math · started 3rd in 2018
G3
275
G4
258
G8
173
-20.7
Math · started 3rd in 2019
G3
260
G7
213
-11.7
Math · started 5th in 2023
G5
195
Math · started 4th in 2023
G4
222
Math · started 3rd in 2023
G3
177
Science · started 11th in 2023
G11
271

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)
-0.43 (95% CI: -0.49 to -0.37)

SES index components

SES method
Blended SES index (ACS + FRL)
SES index value
41.3
FRL %
66.1%
ELL %
0.0% · WA OSPI Report Card Enrollment
SPED %
22.1% · WA OSPI Report Card Enrollment
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$88,179
Tract poverty rate
0.1%
Tract % bachelor's+
18.3%

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
2022–23 school year
NCES CCD vintage
2022
Census ACS 5-year vintage
2020-2024
Last updated
July 26, 2026
Methodology version
0.9.0
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 →