Best Public Elementary Schools in Spokane
Spokane-area public elementary education is anchored by three large districts — Spokane Public Schools, Mead School District, and Central Valley School District — with smaller West Valley, East Valley, Cheney, and Deer Park districts on the perimeter. Unlike King County's top suburbs, where the highest-scoring elementaries clear 90 percent proficiency in both subjects, the Spokane top ten concentrates in the 60-to-80 percent range. Mead and Central Valley together account for half the list, despite Spokane Public Schools being substantially larger by enrollment.
Wilson Elementary, in Spokane's South Hill / Comstock neighborhood and part of Spokane Public Schools, leads the list with 79 percent proficient in math and 77 percent in ELA. Wilson sits in one of Spokane's older affluent residential pockets, near the Manito Park area. Skyline Elementary in north Spokane (Mead SD) follows closely. Both Skyline and Midway, also in Mead, have received state Board of Education recognition for academic achievement in ELA, math, and attendance. Hutton Elementary on Spokane's lower South Hill rounds out the top SPS schools.
Mead School District punches above its weight, placing four elementaries in the top ten (Skyline, Midway, Meadow Ridge, Colbert). Mead serves north Spokane and the Colbert / Mead community along Highway 395, an area whose continued residential growth since 2000 has driven the district's expansion. Central Valley School District, anchored in Spokane Valley and Liberty Lake, places Sunrise and Liberty Lake Elementary in the top ten — both serve the eastern suburban communities along I-90 toward the Idaho border. Liberty Lake's continued population growth has made its single elementary a recurring presence on Spokane-area top-school lists.
The Spokane elementary leaders cluster on the city's South Hill and in north-county Mead / Colbert suburbs, while elementaries in the Hillyard, West Central, and Northeast Spokane neighborhoods — areas with substantially higher poverty rates — do not appear in the top ten. The geographic pattern in Spokane mirrors the income-and-test-score correlation seen statewide, and is more pronounced here than in metropolitan areas with stronger school-foundation infrastructure to offset demographic differences.
The Spokane elementary leaders cluster on the city's South Hill and in north-county Mead / Colbert suburbs, while elementaries in the Hillyard, West Central, and Northeast Spokane neighborhoods — areas with substantially higher free-and-reduced-lunch eligibility — sit further down the list. The pattern tracks the same South Hill / north-suburbs concentration of professional-class household income that shapes Gonzaga Prep's enrollment geography.
Ranked schools
- 001WILSON ELEMENTARYSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE78%
- 002SKYLINE ELEMENTARYMEAD SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE75%
- 003HUTTON ELEMENTARYSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE72%
- 004SUNRISE ELEMENTARYCENTRAL VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE72%
- 005MIDWAY ELEMENTARYMEAD SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE69%
- 006MEADOW RIDGE ELEMENTARYMEAD SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE68%
- 007LIBERTY LAKE ELEMENTARYCENTRAL VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE68%
- 008MORAN PRAIRIE ELEMENTARYSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE67%
- 009MULLAN ROAD ELEMENTARYSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE66%
- 010COLBERT ELEMENTARY SCHOOLMEAD SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE65%
- 011CHESTER ELEMENTARY SCHOOLCENTRAL VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE64%
- 012HAMBLEN ELEMENTARYSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE62%
- 013MCDONALD ELEMENTARY SCHOOLCENTRAL VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE62%
- 014PRAIRIE VIEW ELEMENTARYMEAD SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE62%
- 015PONDEROSA ELEMENTARYCENTRAL VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE60%
- 016WESTVIEW ELEMENTARYSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE60%
- 017FARWELL ELEMENTARY SCHOOLMEAD SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE59%
- 018BALBOA ELEMENTARYSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE58%
- 019NESS ELEMENTARYWEST VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT (SPOKANE) · SPOKANE57%
- 020GREENACRES ELEMENTARYCENTRAL VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE57%
- 021RIVERBEND ELEMENTARY SCHOOLCENTRAL VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE56%
- 022ROOSEVELT ELEMENTARYSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE56%
- 023JEFFERSON ELEMENTARYSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE55%
- 024FRANKLIN ELEMENTARYSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE54%
- 025UNIVERSITY ELEMENTARY SCHOOLCENTRAL VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE54%
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