Parkside Elementary

Parkside Elementary operates as a middle-of-the-pack elementary-level community in Des Moines, Washington, part of Highline School District. Current enrollment sits at 535 students spanning grades pre-K through 5. That puts it 41% larger than the typical public school in Washington, which averages around 380 students.

Parkside Elementary is one of 36 schools operated by Highline School District, a district that hosts 18,072 students overall.

Looking at the student body, Parkside Elementary logs that 26% of students identify as Hispanic, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups; the rest consists of 22% Asian, 21% Black, 16% White, 9% multiracial. That is considerably more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 11%.

On the income-and-resources front, Parkside Elementary shows 28 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 18.8:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 17.3:1 average. About 80% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is north of King County's rate of about 38%.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Parkside Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 26.4%, the actual is 24.7%, a residual of -1.7 points.

In the area at large, community-level numbers for King County indicate median household income runs about $124,746, roughly 57% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 5%. Parkside Elementary is one of 544 public schools in King County (combined enrollment of about 278,492 students).

Nearest neighbor: Des Moines Elementary, around 0.6 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Parkside Elementary. On composite proficiency, Parkside Elementary comes 4th of 9 in the immediate cluster, ahead of the nearby-schools average of 23.6%.

Parkside Elementary operates from a suburban location.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count fell 17%: 643 students in 2018 compared to 535 in 2025. The White share of enrollment ticked down from 29% to 16% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio narrowed from 20.8:1 in 2018 to 18.8:1 today.

On the community side, posts here usually surface around fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.