Best Public Elementary Schools in Tacoma / Pierce County
Pierce County's top public elementaries cluster in three distinct geographies: the Gig Harbor peninsula (Peninsula School District), University Place, and the Sumner / Bonney Lake corridor on the county's eastern edge. Tacoma Public Schools, the county's largest district, does not place a school in the top ten; its strongest elementary, Browns Point on the waterfront across Commencement Bay from downtown, sits at eleventh.
Maple Lawn Elementary in the Sumner-Bonney Lake School District leads the list at 74 percent proficient in math and 77 percent in ELA, the first time in the atlas's rankings that the top Pierce County elementary is outside the Peninsula district. Harbor Heights and Swift Water, both Peninsula schools in Gig Harbor, are second and third at 73 percent. Peninsula SD, headquartered in Gig Harbor, serves the Key Peninsula and Gig Harbor peninsula communities and was selected for the State Superintendent's Award for Educational Excellence in Student Achievement, an honor given to only 25 of Washington's 295 districts. Seven of the top ten elementaries on this list are in Peninsula SD: Harbor Heights, Swift Water, Pioneer, Purdy, Artondale, Discovery, and Voyager, all in or near Gig Harbor. Purdy, last year's leader, is seventh.
University Place School District places two schools in the top ten. Sunset Primary posted one of the largest one-year gains of any elementary in the state, from 62 to 72 percent in math and 58 to 73 percent in ELA, and rose from twenty-fifth to fifth. University Place Primary is sixth. Browns Point Elementary in Tacoma Public Schools remains a notable outlier in the data: at 69 percent averaged across the two subjects it runs roughly twenty points above Tacoma's district averages and ranks first among Tacoma SD's elementaries.
A pattern worth flagging: Pierce County's elementary leaders cluster around the Narrows Bridge corridor connecting Gig Harbor to Tacoma's west side, and along the Federal Way-adjacent Browns Point / Dash Point waterfront. Elementaries in central, south, and east Tacoma — and in the Puyallup, Bethel, and Franklin Pierce districts — do not appear in this top ten despite serving substantially more students.
Ranked schools
- 001MAPLE LAWN ELEMENTARYSUMNER-BONNEY LAKE SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE75%
- 002HARBOR HEIGHTS ELEMENTARY SCHOOLPENINSULA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE73%
- 003SWIFT WATER ELEMENTARYPENINSULA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE73%
- 004PIONEER ELEMENTARY SCHOOLPENINSULA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE72%
- 005SUNSET PRIMARYUNIVERSITY PLACE SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE72%
- 006UNIVERSITY PLACE PRIMARYUNIVERSITY PLACE SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE72%
- 007PURDY ELEMENTARY SCHOOLPENINSULA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE71%
- 008ARTONDALE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLPENINSULA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE71%
- 009DISCOVERY ELEMENTARY SCHOOLPENINSULA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE70%
- 010VOYAGER ELEMENTARYPENINSULA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE70%
- 011BROWNS POINT ELEMENTARY SCHOOLTACOMA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE69%
- 012JEFFERSON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLTACOMA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE68%
- 013SHERMAN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLTACOMA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE68%
- 014WASHINGTON ELEMENTARY SCHOOLTACOMA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE68%
- 015CRESTWOOD ELEMENTARYSUMNER-BONNEY LAKE SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE68%
- 016BEACHWOOD ELEMENTARY SCHOOLCLOVER PARK SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE67%
- 017CHLOE CLARK ELEMENTARYSTEILACOOM HIST. SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE65%
- 018CHAMBERS PRIMARYUNIVERSITY PLACE SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE65%
- 019MERIWETHER ELEMENTARY SCHOOLCLOVER PARK SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE64%
- 020SHAW ROAD ELEMENTARYPUYALLUP SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE63%
- 021POINT DEFIANCE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLTACOMA SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE62%
- 022EVERGREEN PRIMARYUNIVERSITY PLACE SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE60%
- 023CHERRYDALE PRIMARYSTEILACOOM HIST. SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE60%
- 024DAFFODIL VALLEY ELEMENTARYSUMNER-BONNEY LAKE SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE59%
- 025SPINNING ELEMENTARYPUYALLUP SCHOOL DISTRICT · PIERCE59%
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