Best Public Elementary schools in Seatte/surrounding areas? (Seattle, Bellevue: school districts, income)

[jaydub624]

Is there any website or survey that shows what the best public schools are in Seattle and the surrounding areas? I'm assuming that Eastside schools are better because of the higher income levels, but even among schools in Bellevue, Kirkland, Issaquah, Sammamish, etc... what are better? My family is thinking about moving to Seattle and we would have a child in third grade.

I realize that "best" isn't the most descriptive phrase, but I'm referring to those schools that routinely do very well on standardized testing, that offer music/arts, that have a TAG program, small student:teacher ratio, etc...

Any help or advice you can offer is appreciated.

[toughguy]

One of the schools that I attended, the International School, in the eastern "suburb" of Bellevue, always ranks very highly nationally. Most of the schools in the Bellevue district are regularly in the top 100 (depending on which "best" lists you are looking at of course). International is ranked 5th overall in the country here:

http://www.usnews.com/articles/educa...l-schools.html

At International, the studend:teacher ration is relatively small, the students even address their teachers by their first names.

One thing I noticed from the list is that International was the only school in the top five that used a lottery system for admissions rather than a merit-selection system (meaning only the best students are allowed to attend).

[belacane]

GReatschools.net has a pretty reasonable website that details all public schools nationally. You could compare the schools here to your school and see how it ranks. It's based on national scores in standardized testing in, I think, grades 4 and 8? I forget, but it explains it on the website.

However, as with everything, there are caveats. My son's school in Sammamish is ranked a 10. Yes, that applies to the standardized testing - but there is no way I'd give this school a "10" in general overall whatever-ish-ness. There are far too many children in each class - 26 to 30 and the teachers have no aides to help them - and when a child has difficulty conforming to the standards, they immediately want to smack a label on him and send him to special needs. We know several children in this school who are getting pushed by the school administrators to be counseled on mental issues, and this is not encouraging. We're looking into private schools.

[CityGirl72]

Quickly

I did researchon it when I moved to Seattle

#1 Public Elementary is in Laurel Hurst
#2 is in Ballard
#3 is in Wedgwood (this is where my son goes it's has the Spectrum program)

[cabocurtis]

I recommend http://www.psk12.com]PSK12 (broken link) Public School Rankings for rankings (it is a pay service) and also http://www.greatschools.net]GreatSchools.net (broken link) which has some parent and student reviews included and the site also ranks schools based on a 1-10 ranking system. We are lifetime Washingtonians who have lived in several areas and also have family and friends in many school districts and the ratings seem to correspond with the opinions of our friends in these different districts. Good luck.

[aginther]

Does anyone have any experience with the schools in the Snowqualmie area?