West Seattle High School
SEATTLE · WA · Seattle School District No. 1 · Public
📄 Shareable scorecard →Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Seattle Lutheran High School → Southwest Youth and Family Services → Interagency Programs → Private School Services → Seattle Skills Center → Career Link → Puget Sounds Community School → The Polytech →📋 At a glance
- 📚 14 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Gifted & talented program
- 🔢 3 calculus classes · 19 physics · 3 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 86th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 27% by test-taker volume
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How West Seattle High School compares for families
Standout academic depth by national standards.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 14% nationally with 14 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyWA sits right at the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math — local school quality will set your kid apart.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Seattle Lutheran High School, Southwest Youth and Family Services, Interagency Programs and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
86th percentile nationally
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-21Bottom 27% by test-taker volume
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.
👩🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC
Teacher experience & reliability
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.
📊 State assessment · WA Smarter Balanced · grade 10
SBAC grade 10 — met or exceeded standard
School year 2024-25. Levels 3 + 4 combined ("at or above grade level"). Cells suppressed by the state when sample is small.
Source: WA state DOE Smarter Balanced results. Levels 1–2 = below standard, 3 = met, 4 = exceeded. Headline = level 3 + level 4 combined.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
Lower-need school
Not Title I eligible (FRPL < 25%)
<25% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. Well below the Title I threshold; expect a higher-income student body on average.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the strongest early indicator of dropout, transfer-out, and family disengagement. A school's absenteeism trend forecasts its enrollment trend 1-3 years out. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.
Counselor capacity
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020-2021. Counselor ratio = the school's most recent total enrollment ÷ counselor FTE. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a 250:1 maximum; the US national median across schools with on-staff counselors is roughly 430:1.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of +6.5%/year, projecting from 2024's 1,479 students:
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue upside
At $24,141 per student in district revenue, the 543 students projected to be gained by 2029 represent ≈ $13,108,563/year in additional funding.
District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.
Nearby high schools — the local competition
The closest high schools families here also consider, and where their enrollment is heading.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seattle Lutheran High School Seattle |
Private | 0.8 | 69 | -37.8% |
| Southwest Youth and Family Services Seattle |
Public | 1.4 | — | — |
| Interagency Programs SEATTLE |
Public | 2.5 | 210 | -6.2% |
| Private School Services Seattle |
Public | 2.5 | 45 | — |
| Seattle Skills Center Seattle |
Public | 2.5 | — | — |
| Career Link Seattle |
Public | 2.6 | — | — |
| Puget Sounds Community School Seattle |
Private | 3.1 | 33 | — |
| The Polytech Seattle |
Private | 3.2 | 6 | — |