Leschi Elementary School

Seattle, WA · Grades ?–5

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

2½ stars

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

Middle 40% decoded

#1036 of 1502

plausibly #757–1232

Washington schools

#469 · Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Middle 40% achievement

#610 of 1502

Washington schools

#364 · Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro

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:High250 students tested 8 years97% 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: #1036 of 1502

in Washington schools

Raw test scores rank this school #610, 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 #1036.

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 39% 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 33% of the rank

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

  • LowEquity 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%17-13.0
Students gain ground year over year 33%74+8.0
Equity within the school 17%14-6.0
Most students were tested 11%97+5.2

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

    2024 proficiency58.3%meeting standard

    Tested gradeGrade 5

    50 tested

    202234.6%202344.7%202458.3%

    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)#610#1036
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA (677 schools)#364#469
Among similar schools (6 peers)#3#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
293
Free/reduced-price lunch
51.5%
Student-teacher ratio
13.3:1
Locale
City, large
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$205,056ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
5.6%ACS tract proxy
SES index
80.6
Assessment data year
2024
CCD year
2023
ACS vintage
2020-2024

Within Seattle School District No. 1: #62 of 77.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.

Two distinct groups are visible: a strong cluster at the top and a struggling cluster at the bottom.

  • Level 1 — Below standard29%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard23%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)22%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard27%

Why this matters. A bimodal distribution often reflects two student populations served side-by-side (for example a gifted or honors track alongside a general-population cohort). Aggregate scores can hide this. Look at the school's program mix when comparing.

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
Garfield High School#24#19HSHS outcomeHS pool
Nova High SchoolRank withheld
Washington Middle School#418#269Medium
Madrona K-5 School#379#514Medium
Thurgood Marshall Elementary#131#133High

Similar Schools

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

SchoolRatingAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Hathaway ElementaryRankings coming soon
Edmonds eLearning AcademyRank withheld
Carl Cozier Elementary School#26#31High
Big Picture SchoolRank withheld
Lincoln Elementary#4#6High

Historical Ranks

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

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2024#364#469
2023#387#532

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.

2023: percentile 72024: percentile 16

Trending up

Based on 2 years (2023–2024).

Slope: +8.7 pct/yr (no CI — too few years)

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 2023 lost 22 proficiency points by 4th grade — declining, versus a metro median of about 0/yr.

Cohort-to-cohort variance is high — interpret the headline cautiously.

Learning rate: -5.6 proficiency points/yr (95% CI -21.5 to 10.4)

Low confidence

Cohort 20152016201720182019202220232024 Slope
ELA · started 5th in 2015
G5
230
—
ELA · started 4th in 2015
G4
217
G5
255
+37.3
ELA · started 3rd in 2015
G3
253
G4
227
G5
235
-8.8
ELA · started 3rd in 2016
G3
278
G4
256
G5
278
+0.2
ELA · started 3rd in 2017
G3
240
G4
247
G5
237
-1.3
ELA · started 3rd in 2018
G3
279
G4
237
-41.8
ELA · started 3rd in 2019
G3
252
—
ELA · started 5th in 2022
G5
208
—
ELA · started 4th in 2022
G4
193
G5
247
+54.2
ELA · started 3rd in 2022
G3
257
G4
225
G5
283
+12.9
ELA · started 3rd in 2023
G3
268
G4
247
-21.8
ELA · started 3rd in 2024
G3
227
—
Math · started 5th in 2015
G5
207
—
Math · started 4th in 2015
G4
233
G5
202
-30.5
Math · started 3rd in 2015
G3
262
G4
227
G5
224
-19.0
Math · started 3rd in 2016
G3
294
G4
282
G5
281
-6.3
Math · started 3rd in 2017
G3
288
G4
252
G5
221
-33.5
Math · started 3rd in 2018
G3
263
G4
221
-41.7
Math · started 3rd in 2019
G3
259
—
Math · started 5th in 2022
G5
142
—
Math · started 4th in 2022
G4
180
G5
234
+54.4
Math · started 3rd in 2022
G3
225
G4
196
G5
246
+10.2
Math · started 3rd in 2023
G3
270
G4
219
-51.4
Math · started 3rd in 2024
G3
248
—

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
80.6
FRL %
51.5%
ELL %
12.2% · WA OSPI Report Card Enrollment
SPED %
23.1% · WA OSPI Report Card Enrollment
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$205,056
Tract poverty rate
5.6%
Tract % bachelor's+
79.9%

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
2023–24 school year
NCES CCD vintage
2023
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 →