What about the schools? (Federal Way, Camas: move, school district, live)

[BrendaK]

Hello. I wanted to give you feedback regarding your inquiry on a place to live near Seattle that would have good schools. My parents and I moved to Normandy Park when I was 6 years old from the Burien area. Both are west of SeaTac airport. I am 40 right now, and embarrassing as it is to say, I live at home again after a divorce. I am working changing that soon. Anyway, Normandy Park is a suburb area south of Burien, north of Des Moines, which is the next city north of Federal Way. I explain it to people that it is like a little Mercer Island in the south end. We are not an island, but border the Puget Sound. Most of the residents here are 2-parent households and I explain that most are probably lawyers, or doctors. The houses are more expensive than surrounding areas, we have our own police force, and even an elementary school within "our city". The name of the school is Marvista Elementary. When I transferred to this school in first grade I was behind the kids in my class. Even if it was eons ago, I remember feeling dumb. Thank goodness I am a quick learner so I caught up fast, but I believe that we who live here in Normandy Park consider ourselves, oh to put it in a nice way, more privileged. We are on the west side of 1st Avenue and when they annexed the city to include "over there", we were snobbily not so happy. I do not consider myself better than anyone else, there is just a pride thing to it. I hope I have been of help. Normandy Park does have it's own web site too. Good luck with your move, I'm sure you would be happy here. There are sidewalks people are walking up and down every day, a park where they have little concerts weekly in the summer and our OWN beach that you must be a resident of Normandy Park to use. Sounds like what you may be looking for.

[the dufferz]

Von Provo,

20 minutes from Boeing to Stanwood? What kind of car do you drive, or should I say plane?? On a typical afternoon after 2:30 it's 20 minutes from the Boeing access road to Broadway (3 miles or so) if your lucky.

Shadow,

Shoreline is on the north edge of the county (King) older homes, typically has neighborhoods that range from really nice toward the water (Puget Sound), to many of the neighborhoods that flank both hwy 99 and I-5 that tend to appear run down. Not sure of the quality of Schools in that I do not know anybody who attends school there.


The dufferz.

[RodFarlee]

Originally Posted by shadow42

It is hard to compare schools from state to state as each state provides their own exams.

Washington does use standardized national tests. Report cards for each school and district in the state are on the state Public Instruction website, http://reportcard.ospi.k12.wa.us/

The Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) is given to 3rd and 6th graders. Third graders scored at the 58th percentile nationwide in reading and 66th percentile in mathematics, while sixth graders are at the 55th percentile in reading and 58th percentile in math.

Iowa Test of Educational Development (ITED) is given to 9th grade students. They scored at the 54th percentile nationwide in reading, 55th percentile in quantitative thinking, 61st percentile in expression and 58th percentile overall.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NEAP) math, reading, writing and science tests are given to all 4th and 8th graders. (It is required as part of the "No Child Left Behind" law.) Washington consistantly scores above the national average, while California scores below the national average. http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/states/

Washington's percentile national rankings have consistently risen each year on all the above tests. California does not give the ITBS and ITED, and there's no consistant improvement in it's NEAP results. The ITBS and ITED correlate well with the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) test scores.

Washington ranks #1 nationwide in average student scores posted on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) among states where at least half of students take the test, and has for three straight years. It is significantly above California, which is near the national average.
WA 532 verbal, 534 math
CA 504 verbal, 522 math
US 508 verbal, 520 math
Ref: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d...s/dt05_129.asp

Those are measures of success. Failure is less well measured, but high school graduation rates in both Washington (70%) and California (68%) are below the national average (71%).
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_baeo.htm

These national tests suggest WA schools are slightly better than CA schools overall, but differences between individual districts are larger than differences between the states. I hope something in this is helpful to you.

[shadow42]

Thanks. I was actually looking at WASL results on greatschools.net and comparing schools in different areas. A good many of the schools in the seattle area and even beyond have very low proficiency scores, which worries me. The most proficient schools have a ranking of 10. This is in comparison to all schools in WA state. I have just been looking at those areas where the schools rank 10 to see how affordable they are. Problem is, in many cases there is only one or two schools in an area that have high test scores where the others in a city or district fall short. Exceptions are Sammamish, Bellevue, Issaquah, Kirkland...which are pricey as you know. I will review the websites you suggest. Thank you for the info.

[debeas]

Have you checked out the city of Des Moines, (WA, that is) We're located right on Puget Sound and while I can't vouch highly for the public schools, I can tell you many of the public school teachers are putting their children in Catholic Schools. St. Philomena in Des Moines, K-8, and John F. Kennedy in Burien are both very highly rated. Check their web site at:
http://www.stphilomenaschool.com/

[Transplanted]

I just wanted to drop a note about the schools in Camas, Washington....my daughter went there for almost three years and is was a great and very safe experience all together. I never once heard of any violence happening there and the school is set in a nice country setting. The student/teacher ratio is about 20/1 and the school staff is personal, they get to know the students & parents by name!
We lived just outside Vancouver, WA (in the country) and of course the city is a full, busy place with lots of shopping malls/places and just about anything else one could want!
One unforgetable thing....the views of Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens are great from Vancouver!!!!

[wmorgan]

I grew up in California and taught high school in the Seattle area for twenty years. I think you're doing us a disservice by calling out schools "bad"; by most standards I'm familiar with we're usually somewhat above the national average. As you said, the wealthy areas have the best schools because they have the most money, and some schools in the poor parts of the inner cities have problems (but nothing like those in LA). The WASL tests are getting a bad reputation but students who get decent grades in school usually have no problem with them.
However... we are experiencing many of the same problems you had in California. Traffic is awful, house prices are astronomical, and there's no place to park in Seattle. Federal Way and Kent are suburbs of Seattle and have lots of congestion, low-income families, and a fair amount of crime. The farther away from downtown Seattle the nicer and more affordable the communities. Don't worry about the schools; they're better than most in California.

Bill

Originally Posted by shadow42

Hello, everyone. This is a very helpful website. My husband works for Boeing and lived up in Seattle for about 12 years. Seven yrs ago, he moved down to So. Ca. were we now reside with our two small boys. We very much want to leave California for all the reasons everyone else states...expense, traffic, too much materialism...etc. One of the things that concerns me the most about WA is the schools. I have done much research on greatschools.net and the test scores in many areas of the Seattle area that we would consider (ie: Federal Way, Kent) are just terrible. The exception, of course, being the wealthy areas of Bellvue, Issaquah, Mercer Is and the like. We would like to spend under $500,000 for a home. Does anyone have comments or suggestions about the schools in the area? Are the schools really that bad, or are the exams exceptionally difficult? It is hard to compare schools from state to state as each state provides their own exams. Thanks in advance for any advice.

[shadow42]

Thank you so much for your post. The school issue is a big one for me. Can I ask where in Seattle you taught? We live in a very affluent neighborhood in So. Ca. and the schools are excellent. I have been researching on greatschools.net and mostly looking at the WASL scores, so along those standards, there not many schools with exceptional scores on that test. I am now considering the Maple Valley, Issaquah, Sammamish areas on the south and maybe Mukilteo, Bothell, Kenmore in the northern area. All those areas seem to have at least several schools that rank "10" on the greatschools.net website.
If anyone has any comment on Maple Valley, I would be very interested. My husband seemed to think it was mostly lower income and not that great of an area, but there seems to be considerable building of new homes that aren't all that cheap. Also, I did find some highly rated middle and elementary schools. Not sure about Tahoma High, but my kids are very young right now.

[shoreline bound]

Wow, Shadow42, I share some of your same concerns, as my family will be relocating to Washington. I do think I have a solution. (Shoreline)

It's true as someone says that California, in whole, is lower than the national average. But what some fail to understand is that some of the best individual public schools and school districts in the country are in California. In Southern California, there's the Palos Verdes Unified School District and the Irvine School District, which are just stellar (and there are others). Cerritos's Whitney High School has mind-boggling test scores and is usually in the top 3 nationwide in various categories. There are private schools like Hardvard-Westlake and Chadwick. And on and on.

I don't see a large school district in Washington the equivalent of Palos Verdes or Irvine with solid 10s, although the upper schools of Bellevue are excellent, and some are indeed nationally-ranked. Same with the Lake Washington School District (includes cities of Redmond, Kirkland, Woodinville). Mercer Island has all 10s but it's a small district --- and costly (see below).

However, the budget of $500k will get you fewer "looks" in the real estate market for those areas. But it can be done, if you are willing to sacrifice on the physical accommodations of your home.

Or, as I did, you should check out Shoreline. Here are the GreatSchools.net ratings for the elementary schools:
http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/...ating&tab=over

4 of the elementary schools are 10s, 5 are 8s and all 12 schools that are rated are minimum 7. Not bad.

And --- most importantly --- your budget for a home will easily be met. If you go to Realtor.com and bring up homes (3+ bedroom SFR) on the market, you will see that the median price is easily less than $500k. That median is closer to $800k for Bellevue. For Mercer Island --- Holy cow! --- it's around $1.6 million.

BTW, a very positive statistic about these Washington schools is the student/teacher ratio. These are unheard of in California.

[shadow42]

Thanks for your reply, shoreline bound. That is definately an area that we will consider. What you say is exactly what I see...there is no district in wash with stellar scores and it is concerning. But, Seattle is a very educated population, so folks are getting a good education somewhere! Good luck to you.