Catharine Blaine K-8 School

Seattle, WA · Grades K–8

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

Top 15% decoded

#62 of 680

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA schools

★★ Outperforming Expectations

#80 in WA

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Top 15% achievement

#62 of 680

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA schools

#68 in WA

same position as achievement rank

Students score highly, and the school still performs well after accounting for context.

Data confidence:High612 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: #62 of 680

in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA schools

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 35% of the rank

    After accounting for income and demographics, does this school beat what the data would predict?

  • About 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?

  • 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%89+13.7
Students gain ground year over year 30%58+2.3
Equity within the school 15%95+6.7
Direction over recent years 10%50+0.0
Most students were tested 10%100+5.0

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)#62#62
WA (1506 schools)#68#80
Among similar schools (6 peers)#6#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
438
Free/reduced-price lunch
6.8%
Student-teacher ratio
18.3:1
Locale
City, large
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$185,945ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
0.1%ACS tract proxy
SES index
91.8
Assessment data year
2025
CCD year
2024
ACS vintage
2020-2024

Within Seattle School District No. 1: #10 of 78.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 standard5%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard14%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)31%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard50%

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
Magnolia Elementary School#182#351High
Lawton Elementary School#83#130High
Residential Consortium Rankings coming soon.
Frantz Coe Elementary School#12#2High
Cascade Parent Partnership Program Rankings coming soon.

Similar Schools

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

SchoolAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
McDonald International School#26#27High
West Mercer Elementary#30#81High
John J. Audubon Elementary#55#136High
East Ridge Elementary#51#220High
Rosa Parks Elementary#40#45High

Historical Ranks

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

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2025#62#62
2024#67#97
2023#101#99

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

Trajectory

2023: percentile 902024: percentile 942025: percentile 89

Holding steady

Based on 3 years (2023–2025).

Slope: -0.5 pct/yr (95% CI -32.5 to 31.6)

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 gained 43 proficiency points by 7th grade.

Based on 28 cohorts across math + ELA.

Learning rate: +1.2 proficiency points/yr (95% CI -3.0 to 5.4)

Cohort 20152016201720182019202320242025 Slope
ELA · started 8th in 2015
G8
315
ELA · started 7th in 2015
G7
296
G8
309
+12.3
ELA · started 6th in 2015
G6
328
G7
333
G8
312
-8.0
ELA · started 5th in 2015
G5
317
G6
317
G7
297
G8
286
-11.3
ELA · started 4th in 2015
G4
296
G5
292
G6
269
G7
282
G8
288
-2.8
ELA · started 3rd in 2015
G3
293
G4
337
G5
325
G6
318
G7
336
+6.6
ELA · started 3rd in 2016
G3
357
G4
318
G5
333
G6
329
-6.9
ELA · started 3rd in 2017
G3
335
G4
333
G5
306
-14.5
ELA · started 3rd in 2018
G3
331
G4
327
G8
339
+1.9
ELA · started 3rd in 2019
G3
315
G7
330
G8
325
+2.5
ELA · started 6th in 2023
G6
294
G7
308
G8
316
+10.7
ELA · started 5th in 2023
G5
309
G6
309
G7
309
-0.2
ELA · started 4th in 2023
G4
340
G5
345
G6
307
-16.4
ELA · started 3rd in 2023
G3
313
G4
338
G5
345
+15.8
ELA · started 3rd in 2024
G3
313
G4
324
+11.7
ELA · started 3rd in 2025
G3
342
Math · started 8th in 2015
G8
338
Math · started 7th in 2015
G7
317
G8
340
+22.6
Math · started 6th in 2015
G6
325
G7
347
G8
327
+1.1
Math · started 5th in 2015
G5
308
G6
306
G7
311
G8
337
+9.3
Math · started 4th in 2015
G4
311
G5
297
G6
285
G7
311
G8
321
+3.6
Math · started 3rd in 2015
G3
302
G4
334
G5
337
G6
328
G7
346
+8.1
Math · started 3rd in 2016
G3
335
G4
323
G5
331
G6
313
-5.7
Math · started 3rd in 2017
G3
324
G4
331
G5
284
-20.1
Math · started 3rd in 2018
G3
328
G4
329
G8
312
-3.5
Math · started 3rd in 2019
G3
298
G7
309
G8
319
+3.8
Math · started 6th in 2023
G6
289
G7
322
G8
310
+10.6
Math · started 5th in 2023
G5
275
G6
306
G7
312
+18.6
Math · started 4th in 2023
G4
327
G5
320
G6
321
-2.9
Math · started 3rd in 2023
G3
309
G4
347
G5
353
+22.1
Math · started 3rd in 2024
G3
332
G4
352
+20.4
Math · started 3rd in 2025
G3
325

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)
+0.64 (95% CI: +0.62 to +0.66)

SES index components

SES method
Blended SES index (ACS + FRL)
SES index value
91.8
FRL %
6.8%
ELL %
SPED %
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$185,945
Tract poverty rate
0.1%
Tract % bachelor's+
77.1%

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 →