Lake Hills elementary (Seattle, Bellevue: 2014, apartment, rentals)

[ItWasABigMistake]

Why is the rating for Lake Hills Elementary 4 as per greatschools even though its in the BSD. For comparison the neighboring Woodridge is 9. Is the school really comparatively bad?

[mkarch]

Demographics of Lake Hills.

[CrazyDonkey]

GreatSchools rankings (they are not "ratings") here are entirely based on test scores, which are heavily correlated with family income and first language status.

[Warwick3]

The changes in testing are also making the scores look strange at the moment. Two high schools I have been looking at have just dropped to a 2 because most of the students opted out of some exams, apparently!
It is not making relocation decisions easy, especially when they also won't do tours until you are actually living in district!

[carroll4628]

This is the place to go for getting a better idea of the schools. Not sure how Woodridge ended up with a 9. Look at previous years data before they changed the test. Also, you picked a school with 63% FARM, 35% bilingual and 8% special education - I think they're doing a pretty good job with what they have to work with.

Washington State Report Card

[misscross]

FWIW Lake Hills has traditionally ranked lower than other schools in Bellevue because of its demographics, even before the recent weird changes in testing made current scores jump all over the place.

[LaylaM]

As others have said, Lake Hills has a different demographic than the neighboring communities. Many of the residents are first generation American immigrants with English as their second language. The properties are among the oldest and most modest in Bellevue, thus you'll see many more lower cost single family homes, modest apartment rentals, moderate income ranges, etc. There are also some very nice properties sandwiched in between, but this is not prevalent.

The staff and curriculum are not necessarily inferior to other schools, nor are the parents negligent. The teaching challenges are simply greater, thus the lower rating. When my children were in school, we knew many parents who had purchased homes in Lake Hills some years before the demographic changes. Once their kids were of school age, they open-enrolled them to neighboring elementary schools such as Bennett which has always been excellent.

[ItWasABigMistake]

LaylaM, this is the first time we are dealing with Bellevue schools. What is open-enrolled? Can we still do that?

[LaylaM]

Certain schools in the BSD permit a student to attend even when they live outside of the geographic boundaries. This is not across the board and only certain schools are 'open'. You will need to go onto the district website to determine which schools have open space and what the deadline for applying is. I believe it is in early spring, so you are probably past the date. But I remember being able to open enroll one of my daughters beyond the deadline one year. We chose an out of zone middle school for her and the procedure was to first pick up a form from the district office, then both the home school and the out of zone school needed to sign off.

My daughters are grown and this was many years ago so not sure if all of my information is current, but the open enrollment standard for the district still exists. If you choose a home in Lake Hills, it would be wise to investigate other elementary school options.

[CrazyDonkey]

Originally Posted by Warwick3

The changes in testing are also making the scores look strange at the moment. Two high schools I have been looking at have just dropped to a 2 because most of the students opted out of some exams, apparently!
It is not making relocation decisions easy, especially when they also won't do tours until you are actually living in district!

Yeah, when a parent/student opts out, they are counted as scoring zero. The Seattle area is one of the national centers for the opt-out movement.