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What's the best and worst thing about the food at Tacoma School of the Arts?
Community prompt from u/allk12. Replies below.
Enrollment
658
High
DISTRICT 656 · STATE 573
SCHOOL COMMUNITY·TACOMA SCHOOL DISTRICT·NCES 530870002846
Tacoma School of the Arts
302 S. Ninth Street, Tacoma, WA 98402 · (253) 571-7900 · Pierce County
GRADES 09–12HIGH12-CITYTITLE IREGULAR SCHOOL658 STUDENTS
C-
allk12 Grade
Scored higher than 19% of Washington public high schools
- CTest scores Share of students meeting the state standard in reading, math, and other tested subjects, 2023-24 and 2024-25.
- C-Beats expectations How far test scores land above or below what the share of low-income students predicts for a school in this state.
- B-Three-year trend Change in reading and math proficiency over the last three test years.
Grades compare a school only with schools in the same state, because every state gives its own test. How grades work · Top-graded Washington public high schools
Student : Teacher
19.6:1
34 FTE teachers
DISTRICT 24.5:1 · STATE 21.6:1
Free / Reduced Lunch
46%
301 students
DISTRICT 57% · STATE 51%
Community
1
0 members
Enrollment and student:teacher ratio compared against other high schools. Free/Reduced Lunch and demographics compared against all schools.
Enrollment by grade, 2024-25
| Grade | Students | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Grade 9 | 184 | 28% |
| Grade 10 | 188 | 29% |
| Grade 11 | 161 | 24% |
| Grade 12 | 125 | 19% |
Student demographics
71%Diversity index
The chance that two students picked at random belong to different racial or ethnic groups.
DISTRICT 78% · 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
59.4%
WA avg 58.4% . -15.2pp since 2014
Math
12.2%
WA avg 51.2% . -13.1pp since 2014
What this means: On the Smarter Balanced + WCAS, Washington's statewide test, about 59 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level and about 12 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 15 points since 2014, while math scores are down about 13 points.
Smarter Balanced + WCAS results by year
| School year | English Language Arts | Math |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 59.4% | 12.2% |
| 2023-24 | 58.4% | 10.2% |
| 2022-23 | 73.4% | 12.9% |
| 2021-22 | 60.0% | 13.0% |
| 2018-19 | 63.1% | 17.2% |
| 2017-18 | 72.9% | 12.0% |
| 2016-17 | 71.7% | 21.1% |
| 2015-16 | 11.8% | N/A |
| 2014-15 | 74.7% | 25.3% |
% 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
37.0%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
49.5%
based on WA schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
-12.5pp
below demographic expectation
What this means: About 37% of students here test proficient in math and reading, below the roughly 50% 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 Tacoma School of the Arts
Tacoma School of the Arts's state test result (37.0% proficient) is higher than 1 of the 5 schools below with a result.
| School | Students | Low-income | Proficient |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tacoma School of the Arts this school | 658 | 45.7% | 37.0% |
| Industrial Design Engineering and Arts Tacoma | 392 | 46.7% | 52.4% |
| Dr. Dolores Silas High School Tacoma | 1,160 | 41.9% | 34.9% |
| Emerald Ridge High School Puyallup | 1,599 | 43.7% | 45.6% |
| Fife High School Tacoma | 885 | 49.9% | 41.8% |
| Curtis Junior High UNIVERSITY PLACE | 904 | 39.4% | 57.1% |
Matched among Washington high 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 Tacoma School of the Arts ranks
Among high schools| Measure | This school | In Washington | In Pierce County |
|---|---|---|---|
| State test proficiency ranked highest first | 37.0% | #177 of 271 | #18 of 32 |
| Math proficiency ranked highest first | 12.2% | #294 of 321 ▲ 10 | #30 of 32 ▼ 3 |
| Reading proficiency ranked highest first | 59.4% | #153 of 327 ▲ 26 | #17 of 33 ▲ 1 |
| 3-year test score change ranked biggest drop first | -0.7pp | #131 of 259 | #16 of 32 |
| Enrollment ranked largest first | 658 | #189 of 570 | #26 of 51 |
| Students per teacher ranked fewest first | 19.6:1 | #109 of 311 | #9 of 34 |
| Diversity index ranked most diverse first | 70.7% | #64 of 316 | #19 of 35 |
| Free and reduced lunch ranked highest share first | 45.7% | #225 of 386 | #23 of 39 |
| Enrollment change since 2017-18 ranked fastest growth first | +6.5% | #89 of 136 | #11 of 17 |
Ranked against other public high 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
658
+25 (+4%) vs 2020
+45% since 2010-11, when it was 454
Student : Teacher
19.6:1
was 19.2:1
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 | 658 | 33.6 | 19.6:1 | 46% (301) |
| 2023-24 | 648 | 31.6 | 20.5:1 | 55% (357) |
| 2022-23 | 624 | 34.4 | 18.1:1 | 49% (304) |
| 2020-21 | 633 | 33 | 19.2:1 | 41% (261) |
| 2017-18 | 618 | 36.3 | 17.0:1 | 39% (242) |
| 2015-16 | 579 | 31 | 18.7:1 | 40% (230) |
| 2010-11 | 454 | 25 | 18.2:1 | 11% (52) |
Source: NCES Common Core of Data. Rows are the federal collections on file for Tacoma School of the Arts.
Since 2017-18: students up 6% (618 to 658); teachers down 7% (36.3 to 33.6).
About Tacoma School of the Arts
Tacoma School of the Arts is one of the public schools in Tacoma, Washington. It is a medium-sized high school. The school's enrollment of 658 students covers grades 9 through 12.
Tacoma School of the Arts sits within Tacoma School District, which has 66 schools and 28,900 students.
No single group makes up more than half of enrollment at Tacoma School of the Arts. The largest is White students, at 44%. The remaining students are 20% Hispanic, 17% multiracial, 10% Black, and 3% Asian. Census figures show Pierce County is about 64% White. Tacoma School of the Arts's diversity index is 71%, against a US figure of 70%.
Its 33.6 full-time-equivalent teachers give the school a ratio of 19.6:1. This ratio sits 2.0 below the 21.6:1 average for high schools in Washington. Free or reduced-price lunch eligibility is 46%.
Measured against Washington public high schools, Tacoma School of the Arts receives a C-. The grade weighs proficiency most heavily, then how results compare with what the school's low-income share predicts, then the three-year change.
Predicted from its free or reduced-price lunch share, Tacoma School of the Arts would score about 49.5%. It scores 37.0%, a bottom-10% result among Washington schools on BeatsExpectations.
Recent Census Bureau figures for Pierce County show that the median household income is $99,564, roughly 31% of adults have a four-year degree or more, and the share of residents below the poverty line is 6%. Tacoma School of the Arts is one of 287 public schools in the county.
Nearest public school: Special Services, about 0.2 miles away. Tacoma School of the Arts has at least 8 other public schools within five miles. Compared with its nearest neighbors, Tacoma School of the Arts ranks 3rd of 5 on average proficiency.
Federal data place Tacoma School of the Arts in the City: Mid-size locale, which means it is inside a principal city with a population between 100,000 and 250,000.
Tacoma School of the Arts's enrollment grew from 633 in 2020-21 to 658 in 2024-25.
If you have questions about school safety, transportation, and start times at Tacoma School of the Arts, you can post them here. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.
Pierce County at a glance
View full county profilePopulation
930,319
Census ACS
Median income
$99,564
Household, ACS
Bachelor's+
31%
Adults 25+
Poverty rate
6%
Below federal line
Schools in county
287
138,462 students
Quick facts
Related schools
Other schools in Tacoma School District
- Stadium High SchoolHigh · 1,700 students
- Lincoln High SchoolHigh · 1,556 students
- Mount Tahoma High SchoolHigh · 1,410 students
- Dr. Dolores Silas High SchoolHigh · 1,160 students
- Baker Middle SchoolMiddle · 687 students
- Stewart Middle SchoolMiddle · 650 students
Other schools in Tacoma
- Stadium High SchoolHigh · 1,700 students
- Lincoln High SchoolHigh · 1,556 students
- Mount Tahoma High SchoolHigh · 1,410 students
- Dr. Dolores Silas High SchoolHigh · 1,160 students
- Washington High SchoolHigh · 989 students
- Franklin Pierce High SchoolHigh · 977 students
Nearby schools
- Special Services0.2 mi · 9
- Comm Based Trans Program0.2 mi · 71
- Bates Technical High School0.3 mi · 343
- Tacoma Open Doors0.7 mi · 392
- Stadium High School0.9 mi · 1,700
- Bryant Montessori School0.9 mi · 313
Frequently asked questions
About Tacoma School of the ArtsHow large is Tacoma School of the Arts?
Tacoma School of the Arts enrolls approximately 658 students in grades 09-12.
What age range does Tacoma School of the Arts serve?
Tacoma School of the Arts serves students from grade 09 through grade 12.
How many students per teacher at Tacoma School of the Arts?
Approximately 19.6:1 students per teacher at Tacoma School of the Arts.
How diverse is Tacoma School of the Arts?
Tacoma School of the Arts reports a student body of 44% White, 20% Hispanic, 10% Black, 3% Asian, 17% Two or more.
Who oversees Tacoma School of the Arts?
Tacoma School of the Arts is overseen by Tacoma School District in Pierce County.
Data sourceSchool profile facts are sourced from the NCES. Community content is posted by allk12 members.