1
How has Rachel Carson Elementary changed in the last five years, for better or worse?
Community prompt from u/allk12. Replies below.
Enrollment
486
Elementary
DISTRICT 419 · STATE 380
SCHOOL COMMUNITY·LAKE WASHINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT·NCES 530423003242
Rachel Carson Elementary
1035 - 244th Ave NE, Sammamish, WA 98074 · (425) 936-2750 · King County
GRADES PK–05ELEMENTARY21-SUBURBREGULAR SCHOOL486 STUDENTS
Student : Teacher
16.9:1
29 FTE teachers
DISTRICT 16.6:1 · STATE 17.3:1
Free / Reduced Lunch
2%
12 students
DISTRICT 13% · 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 | 46 | 9% |
| Kindergarten | 49 | 10% |
| Grade 1 | 69 | 14% |
| Grade 2 | 70 | 14% |
| Grade 3 | 86 | 18% |
| Grade 4 | 91 | 19% |
| Grade 5 | 75 | 15% |
This year's kindergarten class (49) is 35% smaller than its 5th grade class (75).
Student demographics
55%Diversity index
The chance that two students picked at random belong to different racial or ethnic groups.
DISTRICT 68% · 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
80.4%
WA avg 58.4% . -6.8pp since 2014
Math
83.3%
WA avg 51.2% . +2.0pp since 2014
What this means: On the Smarter Balanced + WCAS, Washington's statewide test, about 80 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level and about 83 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 7 points since 2014, while math scores are up about 2 points.
Smarter Balanced + WCAS results by year
| School year | English Language Arts | Math |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 80.4% | 83.3% |
| 2023-24 | 90.0% | 89.6% |
| 2022-23 | 89.6% | 86.5% |
| 2021-22 | 89.9% | 84.8% |
| 2018-19 | 89.7% | 88.1% |
| 2017-18 | 87.8% | 85.2% |
| 2016-17 | 83.3% | 79.2% |
| 2015-16 | 84.9% | 82.3% |
| 2014-15 | 87.2% | 81.3% |
% 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
AS EXPECTED
Performing as predicted given the school's student profile
Actual proficiency
85.7%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
78.5%
based on WA schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
+7.2pp
above demographic expectation
What this means: About 86% of students here test proficient in math and reading, compared with the roughly 79% typical for Washington schools with a similar share of low-income students. BeatsExpectations measures results against demographically similar schools rather than by raw scores, and this school falls within the typical range, neither among Washington's top nor bottom 10%.
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 Rachel Carson Elementary
Rachel Carson Elementary's state test result (85.7% proficient) is higher than 2 of the 5 schools below with a result.
| School | Students | Low-income | Proficient |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rachel Carson Elementary this school | 486 | 2.5% | 85.7% |
| Discovery Elementary ISSAQUAH | 508 | 4.9% | 85.0% |
| Rosa Parks Elementary Redmond | 450 | 5.8% | 84.4% |
| Christa Mcauliffe Elementary Sammamish | 472 | 1.5% | 92.1% |
| Cascade Ridge Elementary SAMMAMISH | 391 | 3.8% | 91.1% |
| Samantha Smith Elementary Sammamish | 545 | 3.3% | 87.1% |
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 Rachel Carson Elementary ranks
Among elementary schools| Measure | This school | In Washington | In King County |
|---|---|---|---|
| State test proficiency ranked highest first | 85.7% | #18 of 936 | #16 of 280 |
| Math proficiency ranked highest first | 83.3% | #29 of 1,103 ▼ 18 | #24 of 281 ▼ 13 |
| Reading proficiency ranked highest first | 80.4% | #50 of 1,102 ▼ 41 | #40 of 280 ▼ 32 |
| 3-year test score change ranked biggest drop first | -5.5pp | #129 of 928 | #44 of 274 |
| Enrollment ranked largest first | 486 | #330 of 1,268 | #88 of 299 |
| Students per teacher ranked fewest first | 16.9:1 | #800 of 1,085 | #206 of 280 |
| Diversity index ranked most diverse first | 54.5% | #653 of 1,088 | #244 of 281 |
| Free and reduced lunch ranked highest share first | 2.5% | #1,167 of 1,169 | #290 of 292 |
| Enrollment change since 2017-18 ranked fastest growth first | +3.0% | #210 of 257 | #43 of 54 |
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
486
-2 (0%) vs 2020
-15% since 2010-11, when it was 573
Student : Teacher
16.9:1
was 17.4:1
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 | 486 | 28.7 | 16.9:1 | 2% (12) |
| 2023-24 | 521 | 26.8 | 19.4:1 | 2% (11) |
| 2022-23 | 527 | 31 | 17.0:1 | 2% (12) |
| 2020-21 | 488 | 28 | 17.4:1 | 2% (9) |
| 2017-18 | 472 | 25.6 | 18.4:1 | 3% (12) |
| 2015-16 | 418 | 21 | 19.9:1 | 2% (10) |
| 2010-11 | 573 | 27 | 21.2:1 | 1% (6) |
Source: NCES Common Core of Data. Rows are the federal collections on file for Rachel Carson Elementary.
Since 2017-18: students up 3% (472 to 486); teachers up 12% (25.6 to 28.7).
About Rachel Carson Elementary
Rachel Carson Elementary is a medium-sized elementary school in Lake Washington School District, located in Sammamish, Washington. It enrolled 486 students in pre-K through 5 for the 2024-25 school year. Enrollment is 28% higher than the average for elementary schools in Washington, which is about 380.
The 55 schools of Lake Washington School District, including Rachel Carson Elementary, enroll 30,986 students.
Asian students make up a majority at Rachel Carson Elementary, at 62%. The remaining students are 25% White, 8% multiracial, and 4% Hispanic. Census figures show King County is about 21% Asian. Rachel Carson Elementary's diversity index is 55%, against a US figure of 70%.
The teaching staff at Rachel Carson Elementary is 28.7 full-time-equivalent teachers, and the ratio is 16.9:1. For comparison, elementary schools in Washington average 17.3:1. The percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch is 2%. The rate at public schools in King County averages 38%, higher than here.
The model predicts 78.5% for a school in Washington with Rachel Carson Elementary's free or reduced-price lunch share. Rachel Carson Elementary posts 85.7%.
Census estimates describe King County this way: the median household income is $124,746, 57% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and about 5% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Besides Rachel Carson Elementary, King County has 543 other public schools.
The school nearest to Rachel Carson Elementary is Inglewood Middle School, at a distance of less than a tenth of a mile. Other public schools within five miles number at least 8. On average proficiency, Rachel Carson Elementary is 4th of 8 nearby schools with test data.
The federal government classifies Rachel Carson Elementary's location as Suburb: Large.
Rachel Carson Elementary had 488 students in 2020-21 and 486 in 2024-25, nearly the same.
Topics for discussion here include science fairs, picture day, and bus routes. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.
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 Lake Washington School District
- Eastlake High SchoolHigh · 2,481 students
- Redmond High SchoolHigh · 2,304 students
- Lake Washington High SchoolHigh · 2,081 students
- Juanita High SchoolHigh · 1,778 students
- Inglewood Middle SchoolMiddle · 1,229 students
- Redmond Middle SchoolMiddle · 1,009 students
Other schools in Sammamish
- Eastlake High SchoolHigh · 2,481 students
- Skyline High SchoolHigh · 2,244 students
- Inglewood Middle SchoolMiddle · 1,229 students
- Pine Lake Middle SchoolMiddle · 877 students
- Margaret Mead ElementaryElementary · 580 students
- Sunny Hills ElementaryElementary · 574 students
Other Rachel Carson Elementary schools
2 other US public schools in 3 states are named Rachel Carson Elementary. Rachel Carson Elementary is the 2nd largest of the 3.
- Rachel Carson ElementaryGaithersburg, MD · 671 students
- Rachel Carson ElementarySan Jose, CA · 199 students
Nearby schools
- Inglewood Middle School0.1 mi · 1,229
- Samantha Smith Elementary0.6 mi · 545
- Christa Mcauliffe Elementary0.7 mi · 472
- Renaissance School of Art and Reasoning0.8 mi · 80
- Eastlake High School0.8 mi · 2,481
- Skyline High School1.5 mi · 2,244
Frequently asked questions
About Rachel Carson ElementaryHow many students attend Rachel Carson Elementary?
Rachel Carson Elementary enrolls approximately 486 students in grades PK-05.
Is Rachel Carson Elementary an elementary, middle, or high school?
Rachel Carson Elementary is an elementary school covering grades PK-05.
How many students per teacher at Rachel Carson Elementary?
Approximately 16.9:1 students per teacher at Rachel Carson Elementary.
How diverse is Rachel Carson Elementary?
Rachel Carson Elementary reports a student body of 25% White, 4% Hispanic, 2% Black, 62% Asian, 8% Two or more.
Who oversees Rachel Carson Elementary?
Rachel Carson Elementary is overseen by Lake Washington School District in King County.
Data sourceSchool profile facts are sourced from the NCES. Community content is posted by allk12 members.