Best Public High Schools in Vancouver, WA
Clark County's public-high-school landscape is split among five districts of meaningfully different character: Camas, an affluent and highly regarded district on the eastern edge of the metro; Evergreen, the largest and most diverse district by enrollment; Vancouver Public Schools, the historic core district covering downtown Vancouver and most of its older neighborhoods; Battle Ground, a sprawling rural-suburban district to the north; and the smaller Hockinson and Ridgefield districts, which serve fast-growing former farm communities. Camas High School itself is excluded from this ranking because its boundary places it in the Camas district rather than Vancouver proper; the leaders below come from Evergreen, Hockinson, Ridgefield, Vancouver, and Battle Ground.
Union High School, opened in 2007 in the Camas-adjacent Cascade Park area as Evergreen's fourth comprehensive, leads the list. Union has been ranked second among Clark County publics by U.S. News and won the 2018 4A state football title; its 2,000-student enrollment makes it the largest school in the top five. Hockinson High School, with under 700 students, takes second — the Brush Prairie school benefits from a small district (about 2,000 students total K-12) where 81 percent of high schoolers are reading at proficient levels and the College in the High School partnership with Central Washington University delivers free university credit in pre-calculus, statistics, environmental science, and Spanish.
Ridgefield High School, in the rapidly growing former farm town just north of Vancouver, places third. Mountain View, Heritage, and Skyview round out the middle of the top ten — three of Evergreen's and Vancouver Public Schools' largest comprehensives. Battle Ground High School and Prairie High, both in the Battle Ground district, serve a wide rural and exurban catchment that stretches all the way to the Yacolt foothills.
The pattern in the Clark County data is worth flagging. Top-line measures (SAT, graduation rate) cluster more tightly here than in King County, but SBA math proficiency in particular is meaningfully lower than the statewide top tier — only Hockinson clears 50 percent. AP pass rates also vary widely, from above 70 percent at Mountain View and Skyview to below 50 percent at Heritage and Hudson's Bay. The lowest-SAT school in the top ten, Hudson's Bay (850 mean SAT), is included on the strength of a 87 percent graduation rate that reflects Vancouver Public Schools' long-running graduation-coach work in its older central-city schools.
A note on scope: this ranking covers public high schools whose attendance area is inside Clark County and outside of Camas (which the Atlas data layer treats as a separate region), ordered by a composite of SAT mean, four-year graduation rate, AP exam pass rate, and SBA proficiency drawn from OSPI's most recent Report Card. SAT means come from OSPI's annual SAT-by-school PDF. Polaris counts are shown for context. Charter, tribal compact, and option schools are eligible if listed as public; private schools appear in a separate ranking.
Ranked schools
- 001UNION HIGH SCHOOLEVERGREEN SCHOOL DISTRICT (CLARK) · CLARK+1.98σ
- 002HOCKINSON HIGH SCHOOLHOCKINSON SCHOOL DISTRICT · CLARK+1.91σ
- 003RIDGEFIELD HIGH SCHOOLRIDGEFIELD SCHOOL DISTRICT · CLARK+1.22σ
- 004MOUNTAIN VIEW HIGH SCHOOLEVERGREEN SCHOOL DISTRICT (CLARK) · CLARK+1.11σ
- 005HERITAGE HIGH SCHOOLEVERGREEN SCHOOL DISTRICT (CLARK) · CLARK+0.12σ
- 006SKYVIEW HIGH SCHOOLVANCOUVER SCHOOL DISTRICT · CLARK-0.03σ
- 007BATTLE GROUND HIGH SCHOOLBATTLE GROUND SCHOOL DISTRICT · CLARK-0.16σ
- 008PRAIRIE HIGH SCHOOLBATTLE GROUND SCHOOL DISTRICT · CLARK-0.24σ
- 009COLUMBIA RIVER HIGHVANCOUVER SCHOOL DISTRICT · CLARK-0.73σ
- 010EVERGREEN HIGH SCHOOLEVERGREEN SCHOOL DISTRICT (CLARK) · CLARK-0.99σ
- 011HUDSON'S BAY HIGH SCHOOLVANCOUVER SCHOOL DISTRICT · CLARK-2.29σ
- 012FORT VANCOUVER HIGH SCHOOLVANCOUVER SCHOOL DISTRICT · CLARK-3.85σ
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