Wishkah Valley Elementary/High School

Aberdeen, WA · Grades K–12

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

Middle 40% decoded

#82 of 176

rural Washington schools

Performing as Expected

#729 in WA

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Top 30% achievement

#44 of 176

rural Washington schools

#673 in WA

places from achievement to Decoded Rank

Raw achievement and decoded performance are both close to expected for this school's context.

Data confidence:Medium76 students tested 8 years96% 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: #82 of 176

in rural Washington schools

Raw test scores rank this school #44, 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 #82.

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

  • Above 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%77+9.5
Students gain ground year over year 30%15-10.4
Equity within the school 15%57+1.1
Direction over recent years 10%50+0.0
Most students were tested 10%96+4.6

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 →

All Rankings

How this school ranks across the metro, state, and among demographic peers.

ScopeAchievementDecodedShift
Within Rural Washington (176 schools)#44#82
WA (1506 schools)#673#729

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
178
Free/reduced-price lunch
60.7%
Student-teacher ratio
10.5:1
Locale
Rural, distant
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$67,880ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
0.2%ACS tract proxy
SES index
20.3
Assessment data year
2025
CCD year
2024
ACS vintage
2020-2024

High School Outcomes

Latest available data

Graduation 2025 · Coursework 2021 · AP exams 2015 · SAT/ACT 2021

Advanced options
Dual credit
CRDC 2021

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.

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 standard23%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard33%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)22%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard22%

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.

No nearby schools have been ranked yet.

Similar Schools

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

SchoolAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Crossroads High School Rankings coming soon.
Long Beach Elementary School Rankings coming soon.
JJ Smith Elementary Rankings coming soon.
Valley School#115#84Medium
La Conner Elementary#28#38Medium

Historical Ranks

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

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2025Excluded
2024Excluded
2023Excluded

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 4th grade here in 2015 lost 78 proficiency points by 8th grade.

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

Learning rate: -9.8 proficiency points/yr (95% CI -29.7 to 10.0)

Low confidence

Cohort 20152016201720182019202320242025 Slope
ELA · started 8th in 2015
G8
ELA · started 7th in 2015
G7
256
G8
194
G10
257
+4.8
ELA · started 6th in 2015
G6
274
G7
205
G8
209
G10
268
+2.7
ELA · started 5th in 2015
G5
215
G6
177
G7
200
G8
191
-5.0
ELA · started 4th in 2015
G4
293
G5
269
G6
239
G7
208
G8
215
-21.7
ELA · started 3rd in 2015
G3
G4
G5
200
G6
G7
ELA · started 3rd in 2016
G3
289
G4
344
G5
230
G6
G10
285
-2.5
ELA · started 3rd in 2017
G3
192
G4
250
G5
G10
+58.3
ELA · started 3rd in 2018
G3
208
G4
225
G8
200
G10
291
+7.9
ELA · started 3rd in 2019
G3
230
G7
G8
ELA · started 6th in 2023
G6
182
G7
184
G8
186
+1.7
ELA · started 5th in 2023
G5
183
G6
231
G7
207
+11.9
ELA · started 4th in 2023
G4
253
G5
195
G6
267
+6.7
ELA · started 3rd in 2023
G3
245
G4
267
G5
+21.2
ELA · started 3rd in 2024
G3
260
G4
283
+23.3
ELA · started 3rd in 2025
G3
Math · started 8th in 2015
G8
Math · started 7th in 2015
G7
256
G8
206
G10
-50.0
Math · started 6th in 2015
G6
284
G7
248
G8
195
G10
-44.4
Math · started 5th in 2015
G5
231
G6
G7
207
G8
-11.8
Math · started 4th in 2015
G4
320
G5
277
G6
206
G7
G8
-57.2
Math · started 3rd in 2015
G3
G4
G5
170
G6
G7
Math · started 3rd in 2016
G3
267
G4
278
G5
G6
G10
+11.1
Math · started 3rd in 2017
G3
183
G4
G5
G10
Math · started 3rd in 2018
G3
192
G4
283
G8
G10
+91.7
Math · started 3rd in 2019
G3
G7
G8
Math · started 6th in 2023
G6
G7
G8
Math · started 5th in 2023
G5
G6
G7
Math · started 4th in 2023
G4
280
G5
186
G6
233
-23.3
Math · started 3rd in 2023
G3
G4
233
G5
Math · started 3rd in 2024
G3
250
G4
Math · started 3rd in 2025
G3
233
Science · started 11th in 2018
G11
Science · started 11th in 2019
G11
240
Science · started 11th in 2023
G11
Science · started 11th in 2024
G11
246
Science · started 11th in 2025
G11

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)
+0.29 (95% CI: -0.00 to +0.58)

SES index components

SES method
Blended SES index (ACS + FRL)
SES index value
20.3
FRL %
60.7%
ELL %
SPED %
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$67,880
Tract poverty rate
0.2%
Tract % bachelor's+
11.2%

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 →