Catharine Blaine K-8 School

Seattle, WA · Grades K–8

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

6 stars

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

Top 5% decoded

#23 of 1502

Washington schools

#15 · Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Top 15% achievement

#114 of 1502

Washington schools

#101 · Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro

places from achievement to Decoded Rank

Students score highly, and the school still stands out after accounting for context — students also tend to gain ground while enrolled.

Data confidence:High621 students tested 7 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: #23 of 1502

in Washington schools

Raw test scores rank this school #114, but after accounting for context, students here outperform what the data would predict. The Decoded Rank places it at #23.

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?

  • StrongStudents gain ground year over yearCounts for 33% of the rank

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

  • StrongEquity 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%90+15.5
Students gain ground year over year 33%93+14.3
Equity within the school 17%92+7.1
Most students were tested 11%100+5.6

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

    2023 proficiency81.1%meeting standard

    Tested gradeGrades 5, 8

    111 tested

    202273%202381.1%

    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)#114#23
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA (674 schools)#101#15
Among similar schools (6 peers)#5#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
450
Free/reduced-price lunch
6.4%
Student-teacher ratio
18.8:1
Locale
City, large
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$185,945ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
5.3%ACS tract proxy
SES index
91.7
Assessment data year
2023
CCD year
2022
ACS vintage
2020-2024

Within Seattle School District No. 1: #3 of 77.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 standard6%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard17%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)34%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard43%

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
Magnolia Elementary School#188#198Medium
Lawton Elementary School#79#212High
Residential ConsortiumRankings coming soon
Frantz Coe Elementary School#25#41High
Cascade Parent Partnership ProgramRank withheld

Similar Schools

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

SchoolRatingAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Voyager Elementary#163#349High
Bryant Elementary School#50#305High
Frantz Coe Elementary School#25#41High
Wellington Elementary#92#207High
Fall City Elementary#85#354High

Historical Ranks

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

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2023#101#15

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.

Not enough years yet

Trajectory will appear 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 2022 lost 8 proficiency points by 4th grade — declining, versus a metro median of about 0/yr.

Based on 24 cohorts across math + ELA.

Learning rate: -0.5 proficiency points/yr (95% CI -6.0 to 4.9)

Medium confidence

Cohort 2015201620172018201920222023 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
317
-5.6
ELA · started 5th in 2015
G5
317
G6
317
G7
297
G8
290
-10.1
ELA · started 4th in 2015
G4
296
G5
297
G6
273
G7
287
G8
288
-2.7
ELA · started 3rd in 2015
G3
293
G4
341
G5
325
G6
318
G7
340
+7.0
ELA · started 3rd in 2016
G3
357
G4
318
G5
337
G6
329
-6.5
ELA · started 3rd in 2017
G3
339
G4
337
G5
309
G8
326
-2.7
ELA · started 3rd in 2018
G3
331
G4
327
G7
328
G8
339
+1.2
ELA · started 3rd in 2019
G3
315
G6
311
G7
330
+2.7
ELA · started 5th in 2022
G5
298
G6
294
-3.2
ELA · started 4th in 2022
G4
313
G5
309
-3.7
ELA · started 3rd in 2022
G3
330
G4
340
+9.8
ELA · started 3rd in 2023
G3
313
—
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
332
+3.6
Math · started 5th in 2015
G5
308
G6
311
G7
315
G8
337
+9.3
Math · started 4th in 2015
G4
311
G5
302
G6
290
G7
311
G8
321
+3.1
Math · started 3rd in 2015
G3
302
G4
338
G5
337
G6
328
G7
346
+7.7
Math · started 3rd in 2016
G3
335
G4
323
G5
335
G6
313
-5.3
Math · started 3rd in 2017
G3
328
G4
335
G5
287
G8
287
-9.2
Math · started 3rd in 2018
G3
328
G4
329
G7
315
G8
312
-3.6
Math · started 3rd in 2019
G3
301
G6
307
G7
309
+2.0
Math · started 5th in 2022
G5
290
G6
289
-1.6
Math · started 4th in 2022
G4
328
G5
275
-52.5
Math · started 3rd in 2022
G3
335
G4
327
-7.6
Math · started 3rd in 2023
G3
309
—

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
91.7
FRL %
6.4%
ELL %
4.4% · WA OSPI Report Card Enrollment
SPED %
18.3% · WA OSPI Report Card Enrollment
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$185,945
Tract poverty rate
5.3%
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
2022–23 school year
NCES CCD vintage
2022
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 →