No Washington school district has had a harder three years than Marysville. Voters rejected its levies twice in 2022. In August 2023 the state put the district under binding financial conditions, the largest district ever to need them, over an $18 million shortfall. In June 2024 the state superintendent declared it financially insolvent and convened the first financial oversight committee in state history; a special administrator followed in September, and the board parted ways with its superintendent in October. In January 2025 the board voted to close Marysville Middle School, move Liberty Elementary into its building, and turn every elementary into a K-6. On December 5, 2025, the state dissolved the oversight committee and eased the district back to binding conditions, with full release possible in November 2026.
OSPI's 2025-26 enrollment and test-score files, and its 2024-25 attendance and discipline files, are the first full statistical picture of the district after those decisions. This is what they show.
Enrollment: 1,600 fewer students than in 2018-19
OSPI Report Card enrollment files via data.wa.gov, school-level All-Grades headcounts summed across the district.
Marysville has lost students every year but one since 2018-19, 1,601 in all, a 14.2% decline against 3.4% statewide. The pandemic year took 667 students at once and the district never got them back. Enrollment drives state funding, and the district has said the losses, together with the 2022 levy failures, are what put it in binding conditions. The 2025-26 count of 9,657 includes the closure of Marysville Middle School, whose 658 students were split between Cedarcrest and Totem, now both grade 7-8 schools, and the K-6 elementaries.
Test scores: two-thirds of the state rate, moving at the state's pace
OSPI Report Card assessment files via data.wa.gov, District and State rows. Converted to the share of students expected to test, the definition OSPI used through 2024-25.
In 2025-26, 27.4% of Marysville students met the math standard and 37.0% met the English language arts standard. Statewide the rates were 41.2% and 50.6%. The district's math rate has risen 3.3 points in four years, almost exactly the state's 3.5, so it has kept pace with the recovery without closing any of the gap. Its ELA rate has been flat at 36% to 37% for four years, as the state's has been flat at 50% to 51%.
The year of the closures, school by school
| School | Enrollment | Math 2024-25 → 2025-26 | ELA 2024-25 → 2025-26 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marysville Getchell High School | 1,347 | 20% → 23% | 46% → 47% |
| Marysville Pilchuck High School | 1,124 | 14% → 14% | 35% → 39% |
| Cedarcrest (now grades 7-8) | 654 | 36% → 35% | 47% → 49% |
| Totem Middle School (now grades 7-8) | 624 | 12% → 16% | 21% → 25% |
| Quil Ceda Tulalip Elementary | 571 | 14% → 10% | 13% → 13% |
| Sunnyside Elementary | 560 | 46% → 37% | 49% → 43% |
| Liberty Elementary (moved into the former middle school) | 529 | 31% → 38% | 35% → 42% |
| Kellogg Marsh Elementary | 517 | 28% → 38% | 38% → 41% |
| Allen Creek Elementary | 488 | 32% → 32% | 41% → 35% |
| Cascade Elementary | 455 | 34% → 36% | 46% → 43% |
| Grove Elementary | 436 | 37% → 36% | 41% → 42% |
| Shoultes Elementary | 413 | 32% → 15% | 27% → 24% |
| Marshall Elementary | 346 | 17% → 22% | 28% → 25% |
| Pinewood Elementary | 341 | 49% → 30% | 53% → 39% |
| 10th Street School (grades 6-8 option) | 246 | 25% → 33% | 42% → 48% |
Schools with 200 or more students and a reported SBA result in both years. Marysville Middle School (658 students in 2024-25) closed in June 2025. Percentages are the share of students meeting standard.
The reorganization year produced some of the largest swings in the state in both directions. Pinewood Elementary lost 19 points in math and 13 in ELA, the third-largest one-year decline of any Washington school with 200 or more students. Shoultes Elementary's math rate fell by half, from 32% to 15%, and Sunnyside Elementary lost 9 points in math. On the other side, Liberty Elementary, the school that moved into the closed middle school's building, gained 7 points in math and 8 in ELA; Kellogg Marsh gained 10 in math; and 10th Street School, the district's grade 6-8 option program, gained 8 and 6. Totem Middle School, which absorbed part of Marysville Middle's enrollment, rose in both subjects from the lowest base in the district.
Attendance and discipline
OSPI Report Card SQSS and discipline files via data.wa.gov, District and State rows, all students.
Marysville's attendance has improved every year since the pandemic, from 52.9% of students regularly attending in 2021-22 to 63.1% in 2024-25, but it is still ten points below the state. Its discipline rate has moved the other way. In 2024-25, 8.3% of Marysville students received at least one suspension or expulsion, up from 6.8% the year before and more than double the state's 3.7%.
Marysville Pilchuck's rate nearly tripled in a year. Totem Middle School's rose from 8.5% to 14.4%, and Quil Ceda Tulalip Elementary's from 0.6% to 7.1%. Marysville Getchell went the other direction, from 7.1% to 4.7%. Quil Ceda Tulalip, the district's largest elementary at 571 students, also has the lowest regular-attendance rate of any Washington elementary school with 200 or more students: 28% of its students attended at least 90% of school days, unchanged from the year before. Marysville Pilchuck's regular attendance was 55.8%, also unchanged, and its four-year graduation rate was 77.1%, against Getchell's 88.5%.
Where the finances stand
The district ended 2024-25 with a general-fund balance of $5.4 million, and its 2025-26 budget adds $2 million to it. The plan the state approved in May 2024 eliminated 46 positions and closed two schools; the closures were expected to save about $2.4 million a year. The state auditor removed its going-concern finding after the 2023-24 fiscal year. Deborah Rumbaugh, who led the district through the oversight period as interim superintendent, was made permanent on December 1, 2025. The district remains under binding conditions for 12 to 18 months and will be considered for release from state oversight in November 2026. The next data on whether the reorganization is working, the 2026-27 test scores, arrives in September 2027.