Best middle/high schools in Seattle and surrounding area with more than a handful of African-American students (Tacoma: home)

[jspencer2ga]

We are an African-American family living in the deep South. I'm concerned about the hope of getting a good education for my daugther who's now in the fifth grade. I am attracted to the Seattle area because they have good schools without a lot of the racial baggage that we deal with here. That being said, I don't want my daughter to be an oddity or to feel alienated, so I would like more than 5 or 6 African-American students in the school.

I work from home so it's really a matter of where the schools are that meet this criteria.

[Count David]

This goes against my credo but...

Garfield High School - Seattle, Washington - WA - School overview
Lindbergh Senior High School - Renton, Washington - WA - School overview
Wilson High School - Tacoma, Washington - WA - School overview

...are some examples.

[tomie]

I went to Garfield High School and it has a mix of asians, blacks, whites, hispanics, middle-easterners etc. (There is DEFINITELY more than 6 of each race) There are 1-2 new foreign exchange students in the school each year. I'm asian myself. Race is discussed amongst the youth, but jokingly. There is little racial tension because of that. Race comes into the scene simply because the student body is so diverse, but the normalcy of this diversity causes people to be very tolerant. One thing I noticed when I visit more conservative areas of America (South Carolina) is that there is subtle, passive-aggressive racial tension in interactions. I did not have that feeling when I attended GHS. Race was discussed overtly, but lightheartedly.
Garfield has a great AP program. I noticed in David Aguilar's linked reviews that people complained about cliques and a segregation between AP and non-AP students. To me this was natural, as students will befriend classmates more easily than non-classmates. It is not a matter of race. It is a large school - of course there will be cliques.
Try to get your kid to take advantage of the AP programs. However, a word of wisdom I received was not to overstretch myself, as a lower GPA in an AP course could seem worse to colleges than a 4.0 in an ordinary course. There're lots of clubs, so there's no reason to be lonely.

Franklin High School is just about as diverse, but my younger friends say they don't quite like it there. There are more gangster-wannabes in that school.
I attended Cleveland High School for my freshman year, and I must say I hated being there. I got a 4.0 GPA for the year, but that was because the classes were so easy (for the slackers). There are even more wannabes in that school, and I only had, as I recall, 2 friends while there.
One school you must avoid is Rainier Beach High School. There is a lot more African American students there, however, the teachers get little respect compared to the other schools. My mom worked there for a while as a cafeteria lady there and told me she almost wanted to cry due to the rudeness of the students.
Notice how worse the schools get the more south they are in Seattle. I did list the schools in that order, btw.

[Anders15]

In Seattle do parents pick grade schools or are they zoned based on your residence?