Edward Zeiger Elem

Puyallup, WA · Grades ?–6

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

Bottom 30% decoded

#522 of 680

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA schools

Below Expected

#1166 in WA

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Middle 40% achievement

#415 of 680

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA schools

#772 in WA

places from achievement to Decoded Rank

Decoded performance is roughly in line with expectations for this school's context.

Data confidence:High570 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: #522 of 680

in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA schools

Raw test scores rank this school #415, but families here have higher-than-average income and educational attainment, so the expected score is also high. After accounting for context, this school performs about as predicted — the Decoded Rank is #522.

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?

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

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

  • About 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%47-1.0
Students gain ground year over year 30%6-13.3
Equity within the school 15%58+1.2
Direction over recent years 10%50+0.0
Most students were tested 10%98+4.8

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)#415#522
WA (1506 schools)#772#1166
Among similar schools (6 peers)#4#4

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
500
Free/reduced-price lunch
57.4%
Student-teacher ratio
14.7:1
Locale
Suburb, large
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$99,775ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
0.1%ACS tract proxy
SES index
52.3
Assessment data year
2025
CCD year
2024
ACS vintage
2020-2024

Within Puyallup School District: #27 of 29.Bottom 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 typically spread across proficiency levels.

  • Level 1 — Below standard26%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard30%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)27%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard17%

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
Gov John Rogers High School Rankings coming soon.
Ballou Jr High#409#424Medium
Firgrove Elementary#531#453High
Dessie F Evans Elementary#371#504High
Puyallup Online Academy/POA Rankings coming soon.

Similar Schools

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

SchoolAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Helen Haller Elementary School Rankings coming soon.
John Campbell Primary School Rankings coming soon.
James McGee Elementary#36#35High
Skyline Elementary School#25#35High
Evergreen Elementary School#34#33High

Historical Ranks

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

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2025#415#522
2024#417#497
2023#465#605

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

Trajectory

2023: percentile 332024: percentile 432025: percentile 47

Trending up

Based on 3 years (2023–2025).

Slope: +7.2 pct/yr (95% CI -13.0 to 27.4)

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 16 proficiency points by 5th grade.

Based on 18 cohorts across math + ELA.

Learning rate: -10.7 proficiency points/yr (95% CI -17.0 to -4.3)

Medium confidence

Cohort 20152016201720182019202320242025 Slope
ELA · started 6th in 2015
G6
244
ELA · started 5th in 2015
G5
250
G6
ELA · started 4th in 2015
G4
259
G5
243
G6
-15.5
ELA · started 3rd in 2015
G3
281
G4
272
G5
266
G6
-7.8
ELA · started 3rd in 2016
G3
267
G4
249
G5
254
G6
-6.7
ELA · started 3rd in 2017
G3
255
G4
242
G5
267
+6.2
ELA · started 3rd in 2018
G3
276
G4
260
-15.3
ELA · started 3rd in 2019
G3
271
ELA · started 6th in 2023
G6
226
ELA · started 5th in 2023
G5
252
G6
254
+1.8
ELA · started 4th in 2023
G4
211
G5
237
G6
253
+21.0
ELA · started 3rd in 2023
G3
214
G4
213
G5
237
+11.3
ELA · started 3rd in 2024
G3
235
G4
234
-0.9
ELA · started 3rd in 2025
G3
241
Math · started 6th in 2015
G6
244
Math · started 5th in 2015
G5
237
G6
Math · started 4th in 2015
G4
284
G5
241
G6
-43.5
Math · started 3rd in 2015
G3
289
G4
263
G5
249
G6
-20.0
Math · started 3rd in 2016
G3
282
G4
257
G5
233
G6
-24.8
Math · started 3rd in 2017
G3
277
G4
268
G5
245
-16.2
Math · started 3rd in 2018
G3
290
G4
265
-25.0
Math · started 3rd in 2019
G3
277
Math · started 6th in 2023
G6
177
Math · started 5th in 2023
G5
195
G6
209
+14.2
Math · started 4th in 2023
G4
243
G5
218
G6
219
-12.2
Math · started 3rd in 2023
G3
250
G4
245
G5
214
-18.1
Math · started 3rd in 2024
G3
244
G4
233
-11.1
Math · started 3rd in 2025
G3
254

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: -0.06 to -0.02)

SES index components

SES method
Blended SES index (ACS + FRL)
SES index value
52.3
FRL %
57.4%
ELL %
SPED %
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$99,775
Tract poverty rate
0.1%
Tract % bachelor's+
35.4%

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 →