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Rachel Carson Elementary

Lake Washington School District · Elementary · grades PK, K-5 · 1035 244th Ave NE, Sammamish, WA 98074-3486

Location

1035 244th Ave NE, Sammamish, WA 98074-3486

Academic snapshot

Meeting standard, latest year
81.8%
SBAC ELA+Math combined, 2024-25
Meeting standard, 3-year
86.6%
#17 of 558 elementary schools region-wide · #4 of 32 in this district
Exceeding standard, latest year
60.1%
SBAC Level 4, the top score band
Exceeding standard, 3-year
63.1%
#23 of 558 elementary schools region-wide · #7 of 32 in this district
3-year trend

Who attends

Students from low-income homes
2.5%
English language learners
8.8%
Highly Capable program
17.1%
Enrollment
486
Kids per typical block
Density band: unknown

Teachers

Teachers (latest)
31
Avg years experience
10.6
MA-degree share
87.1%
3-year experience trend

Avg years and MA-degree share are direct OSPI publications; the 3-year trend is our derivation. From data.wa.gov/yp28-ks6d.

School pathway

Which schools connect to this one by attendance area. Your address decides the assignment, so confirm with the district before relying on it. See the full elementary to high-school pathways.

Highly Capable / gifted pathway

Curated from district Highly Capable program pages, with observed-at dates and confidence labels.

Research dossier

Rachel Carson Elementary

Lake Washington School District · grades PK–5 · 486 students · attendance-area school on the Sammamish Plateau, feeding Inglewood Middle School and Eastlake High School

The verdict

On paper Carson looks like the plateau standard. 92.9% of incoming kindergartners arrive ready in all six domains of WaKIDS (the state's kindergarten readiness check), four in five students meet standard on state tests, and one student in six is formally identified highly capable. What the profile pages won't tell you is that the ground just shifted under those advanced learners. Starting in 2025-26, Lake Washington School District dissolved its elementary pull-out gifted model into "Classroom-Based Services." Carson's highly capable students, 17.1% of the school, are now served inside the regular classroom by the regular teacher, and families who want a self-contained cohort must send their child to Christa McAuliffe Elementary instead. Whether a Carson teacher can genuinely extend a table of gifted kids while teaching everyone else is the question that should organize your tour.

The compensating asset is parent capacity. The Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) functions as a small enrichment company: it brokers a dozen vendor-run classes a session, runs a free 15-packet math program, and backs a LEGO robotics team invited to an international event in 2026. For a family that will use that machinery (and can staff its mandatory chaperone shifts), Carson offers more than its test scores. For a family banking on a dedicated gifted classroom, the school no longer has one.

Researched 2026-06-10. Citations and claim ledger included in the full dossier.

That is the free excerpt. The full dossier is the rest of the file: how these outcomes hold up in context, how deep the advanced-peer group actually runs, how families get in (and who doesn't), culture signals from handbooks and climate surveys, logistics, neighborhood context, the open questions to ask on your tour, and every citation, so you can check our work. Unlock it for $9, or get a $29 Research Pass with 3 dossiers included.

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Sources

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