Spokane
Tacoma's Attendance Recovery Reversed: Chronic Absenteeism Jumped Back to 36%
For three years, Tacoma Public Schools was one of Washington's attendance recovery stories. The chronic absenteeism rate dropped from a catastrophic 40.4% in 2021-22 to 37.6%, then 33.9% — a steady, e...
Native American Enrollment Cut in Half
In 2010, Washington public schools enrolled 24,768 Native American students. By 2026, that number had fallen to 12,622. Half of them, gone from the rolls.
Gender X Grew 6,300% in Washington Schools, Then the Count Reversed
In 2014-15, Washington's public schools counted 77 students who identified as neither male nor female. By 2023-24, that number had reached 4,979, a 6,362% increase that made Washington one of the most...
Six Years Later, 63% of Washington Districts Haven't Recovered
Washington's public schools enrolled 1,146,882 students in 2019-20. That was the peak. Six years and a pandemic later, only 37% of the state's school districts have climbed back to that waterline, and...
Seattle Spent a Decade Building. Six Years Erased It.
Between 2010 and 2020, Seattle Public Schools did something almost no large urban district in the country managed: it grew. Not modestly. The district added 8,993 students over a decade, swelling from...
White Students Now 47% of Washington's Schools
In the fall of 2022, for the first time in recorded history, white students made up less than half of Washington's public school enrollment. The threshold was crossed quietly: 49.9%, a fraction of a p...