Truman Middle School

Truman Middle School, a small middle school in Tacoma, Washington, overseen by Tacoma School District, serves 438 students, covering grades 6 through 8. Enrollment runs roughly 24% smaller than the state mean of about 577.

Within Tacoma School District, which oversees 66 schools and 28,900 students, Truman Middle School is one campus in the system.

Looking at the student body, Truman Middle School reports that the most-represented group is White (53%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups; the rest comes out to 18% multiracial, 14% Hispanic, 8% Black, 5% Asian. By comparison, Pierce County as a whole is about 64% White, so the school skews considerably less White than its surroundings.

Looking at the economic backdrop, Staff filings list 21 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 20.8:1 students per teacher. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 18.9:1, putting Truman Middle School higher than the state norm the norm. An estimated 50% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Truman Middle School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 47.0%, the actual is 38.3%, a residual of -8.7 points.

Around the school, community-level numbers for Pierce County indicate median household income runs about $99,564, roughly 31% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 6% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Truman Middle School is one of 287 public schools in Pierce County (combined enrollment of about 138,462 students).

The closest other public school is Point Defiance Elementary School, roughly 0.7 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Truman Middle School comes 6th of 6 in the immediate cluster, below the nearby-schools average of 60.1%.

The campus sits in an inner-city setting.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count decreased 43%: 764 students in 2018 compared to 438 in 2025. Over the same period, the Black share contracted from 16% to 8%.

Within the allk12 community for this school, members of the Truman Middle School community share and discuss school events, parent volunteer needs, and clubs. Parents, students, alumni, and staff are welcome to weigh in.