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What do you wish you knew before starting at Bow Lake Elementary?
Community prompt from u/allk12. Replies below.
Enrollment
524
Elementary
DISTRICT 459 · STATE 380
SCHOOL COMMUNITY·HIGHLINE SCHOOL DISTRICT·NCES 530354000521
Bow Lake Elementary
18237 42nd Ave S, SeaTac, WA 98188 · (206) 631-3500 · King County
GRADES PK–05ELEMENTARY21-SUBURBTITLE IREGULAR SCHOOL524 STUDENTS
Student : Teacher
15.8:1
33 FTE teachers
DISTRICT 18.1:1 · STATE 17.3:1
Free / Reduced Lunch
76%
396 students
DISTRICT 65% · STATE 51%
Community
1
0 members
Enrollment and student:teacher ratio compared against other elementary schools. Free/Reduced Lunch and demographics compared against all schools.
Enrollment by grade, 2024-25
| Grade | Students | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-K | 1 | 0% |
| Kindergarten | 74 | 14% |
| Grade 1 | 72 | 14% |
| Grade 2 | 92 | 18% |
| Grade 3 | 99 | 19% |
| Grade 4 | 94 | 18% |
| Grade 5 | 92 | 18% |
This year's kindergarten class (74) is 20% smaller than its 5th grade class (92).
Student demographics
78%Diversity index
The chance that two students picked at random belong to different racial or ethnic groups.
DISTRICT 75% · STATE 68% · US 70%
Student head counts by race/ethnicity from federal NCES enrollment data. District, state, and US figures are each group's share of all public school students in that area (US excludes territories). Very small groups may be suppressed in the source, so categories do not always sum exactly to total enrollment.
Gender split
Test scores
Smarter Balanced + WCAS 2024-25 . % Met or Exceeded StandardEnglish Language Arts
20.5%
WA avg 58.4% . -13.3pp since 2014
Math
22.4%
WA avg 51.2% . -14.9pp since 2014
What this means: On the Smarter Balanced + WCAS, Washington's statewide test, about 21 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level and about 22 of 100 do math at grade level. Across all Washington schools, those numbers are about 58 and 51. Reading and writing scores are down about 13 points since 2014, while math scores are down about 15 points.
Smarter Balanced + WCAS results by year
| School year | English Language Arts | Math |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 20.5% | 22.4% |
| 2023-24 | 17.1% | 17.6% |
| 2022-23 | 15.3% | 15.6% |
| 2021-22 | 19.4% | 16.7% |
| 2018-19 | 38.0% | 34.4% |
| 2017-18 | 40.4% | 34.8% |
| 2016-17 | 38.0% | 35.5% |
| 2015-16 | 38.1% | 35.6% |
| 2014-15 | 33.8% | 37.3% |
% Met or Exceeded Standard, all students and all tested grades.
Source: Smarter Balanced + WCAS. All students, all grades. See all years and grades →
BeatsExpectations
Demographically-adjusted score · methodologyTier
UNDERPERFORMING
Bottom 10% of WA schools after controlling for student poverty
Actual proficiency
18.1%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
29.5%
based on WA schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
-11.4pp
below demographic expectation
What this means: About 18% of students here test proficient in math and reading, below the roughly 30% typical for Washington schools with a similar share of low-income students. BeatsExpectations compares each school with others at the same poverty level, not by raw scores, so a school lands here when its results trail those comparable schools, which is not the same as having low scores. A higher-scoring school can still fall in this tier if similar schools score higher still.
BeatsExpectations runs a per-state regression of proficiency on free/reduced-lunch share, then scores each school by residual. How this is calculated →
Schools most like Bow Lake Elementary
Bow Lake Elementary's state test result (18.1% proficient) is higher than 0 of the 5 schools below with a result.
| School | Students | Low-income | Proficient |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bow Lake Elementary this school | 524 | 75.6% | 18.1% |
| McMicken Heights Elementary SeaTac | 484 | 76.0% | 34.7% |
| Lowell Elementary School SEATTLE | 392 | 71.9% | 30.6% |
| Campbell Hill Elementary School Seattle | 345 | 70.7% | 39.9% |
| Thorndyke Elementary SEATTLE | 386 | 86.5% | 21.2% |
| Reed Elementary School Tacoma | 426 | 72.5% | 27.7% |
Matched among Washington elementary schools on enrollment, the share of students from low-income families (eligible for free or reduced-price lunch), and racial and ethnic makeup. Proficient is the average share of students meeting the state standard across all of the school's state tests in 2023-24 and 2024-25, the same combined score our test-score rankings use. Online schools and schools serving specialized populations are not matched.
Where Bow Lake Elementary ranks
Among elementary schools| Measure | This school | In Washington | In King County |
|---|---|---|---|
| State test proficiency ranked highest first | 18.1% | #914 of 936 | #274 of 280 |
| Math proficiency ranked highest first | 22.4% | #1,004 of 1,103 ▲ 40 | #265 of 281 ▲ 2 |
| Reading proficiency ranked highest first | 20.5% | #1,060 of 1,102 ▲ 16 | #273 of 280 ▲ 1 |
| 3-year test score change ranked biggest gain first | +3.5pp | #343 of 928 | #88 of 274 |
| Enrollment ranked largest first | 524 | #234 of 1,268 | #61 of 299 |
| Students per teacher ranked fewest first | 15.8:1 | #528 of 1,085 | #127 of 280 |
| Diversity index ranked most diverse first | 77.8% | #70 of 1,088 | #40 of 281 |
| Free and reduced lunch ranked highest share first | 75.6% | #170 of 1,169 | #25 of 292 |
| Enrollment change since 2017-18 ranked steepest decline first | -27.2% | #160 of 778 | #60 of 220 |
Ranked against other public elementary schools. Online schools are left out of every list, and test-score lists leave out schools that serve specialized populations. Each rank links to the full list. Arrows under a test-score rank show places moved since the prior test year, among schools tested both years.
4-year change
SY 2020-21 vs SY 2024-25Enrollment
524
+31 (+6%) vs 2020
+42% since 1990-91, when it was 369
Student : Teacher
15.8:1
was 16.4:1
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
Enrollment and staffing by year
| School year | Students | Teachers (FTE) | Students per teacher | Free and reduced lunch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 524 | 33.2 | 15.8:1 | 76% (396) |
| 2023-24 | 520 | 32.8 | 15.9:1 | 82% (425) |
| 2022-23 | 500 | 33.2 | 15.1:1 | 80% (402) |
| 2020-21 | 493 | 30 | 16.4:1 | 73% (359) |
| 2017-18 | 720 | 39.7 | 18.1:1 | 81% (585) |
| 2015-16 | 722 | 41 | 17.6:1 | 86% (622) |
| 2010-11 | 639 | 32 | 20.0:1 | 65% (416) |
| 2000-01 | 363 | 21 | 17.3:1 | N/A |
| 1990-91 | 369 | 18 | 20.5:1 | N/A |
Source: NCES Common Core of Data. Rows are the federal collections on file for Bow Lake Elementary.
Since 2017-18: students down 27% (720 to 524); teachers down 17% (39.7 to 33.2).
About Bow Lake Elementary
Bow Lake Elementary is a public elementary school in SeaTac, Washington. It reported 524 students in pre-K through 5 in 2024-25. By comparison, elementary schools in Washington enroll about 380 students on average.
Bow Lake Elementary is a school in Highline School District. The district has 36 schools and 18,072 students.
The biggest share of students at Bow Lake Elementary, 32%, is Black. Next come 27% Hispanic, 16% Asian, 10% White, and 8% multiracial. That compares with about 7% Black among all King County residents. The diversity index for Bow Lake Elementary is 78%. For US public schools as a whole it is 70%.
Bow Lake Elementary has 33.2 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-to-teacher ratio of about 15.8:1. The school's 15.8:1 compares with an average of 17.3:1 for elementary schools in Washington. Eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch, often used to gauge student poverty, is 76%. That is higher than the 38% average for public schools in King County.
Bow Lake Elementary trails its predicted average proficiency rate across its state test results by 11.4 points (18.1% versus 29.5%), a bottom-10% result in Washington on BeatsExpectations.
Five-year Census Bureau estimates for King County show that median household income comes to about $124,746, roughly 57% of adults have a four-year degree or more, and about 5% of residents live below the federal poverty line. King County counts 544 public schools with about 278,492 students.
Chinook Middle School sits about 0.3 miles from Bow Lake Elementary. There are at least 8 other public schools within five miles. Bow Lake Elementary places 4th of 5 on proficiency among the closest schools that report scores.
Locale: Suburb: Large. In NCES terms, the school is in a suburban area outside a principal city, within an urbanized area with a population of 250,000 or more.
Enrollment figures show a gain of 31 students from 2020-21 to 2024-25.
People can post here about homework, tutoring, and testing dates and other school topics. Parents, students, alumni, and staff are welcome to post.
King County at a glance
View full county profilePopulation
2,287,171
Census ACS
Median income
$124,746
Household, ACS
Bachelor's+
57%
Adults 25+
Poverty rate
5%
Below federal line
Schools in county
544
278,492 students
Quick facts
Related schools
Other schools in Highline School District
- Mount Rainier High SchoolHigh · 1,846 students
- Highline High SchoolHigh · 1,423 students
- Evergreen High SchoolHigh · 1,080 students
- Glacier Middle SchoolMiddle · 803 students
- Cascade Middle SchoolMiddle · 671 students
- Tyee High SchoolHigh · 644 students
Other schools in SeaTac
- Glacier Middle SchoolMiddle · 803 students
- River Ridge ElementaryElementary · 697 students
- Tyee High SchoolHigh · 644 students
- Chinook Middle SchoolMiddle · 620 students
- McMicken Heights ElementaryElementary · 484 students
- Madrona ElementaryElementary · 317 students
Nearby schools
- Chinook Middle School0.3 mi · 620
- Tyee High School0.3 mi · 644
- Valley View Early Childhood Center0.5 mi · 225
- McMicken Heights Elementary1.0 mi · 484
- Madrona Elementary1.4 mi · 317
- Puget Sound Skills Center1.9 mi · 3
Frequently asked questions
About Bow Lake ElementaryHow large is Bow Lake Elementary?
Bow Lake Elementary enrolls approximately 524 students in grades PK-05.
What grades does Bow Lake Elementary serve?
Bow Lake Elementary serves grades PK-05.
How many teachers does Bow Lake Elementary have?
Bow Lake Elementary employs 33 FTE teachers, for a student-to-teacher ratio of 15.8:1.
How diverse is Bow Lake Elementary?
Bow Lake Elementary reports a student body of 10% White, 27% Hispanic, 32% Black, 16% Asian, 8% Two or more.
Who oversees Bow Lake Elementary?
Bow Lake Elementary is overseen by Highline School District in King County.
Data sourceSchool profile facts are sourced from the NCES. Community content is posted by allk12 members.