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St Francis of Assisi School

Private school · Burien, King County · grades K-8 · Roman Catholic

Snapshot

K-12 enrollment
488
SBE-reported, 2024-25
Student-teacher ratio
16.7:1
NCES PSS, 2021-22
Teachers (FTE)
27
NCES PSS, 2021-22

Identity and approval

Campus
St Francis of Assisi School, 15216 21st Ave SW, Burien 98166
Host public district
Highline School District
Grades
K-8
Religious affiliation
Roman Catholic
WA SBE approval
2026-27 (state-approved private school)
Profit status
Nonprofit

Enrollment

K12345678
515252574856556057

Enrollment by grade, 2024-25 school year, as reported to the WA State Board of Education.

Academics

Washington private schools are not required to publish state assessment results. No public score data exists for this school.

Student demographics

Asian
8%
Black
4%
Hispanic
11%
White
63%

NCES Private School Universe Survey, 2021-22 (the most recent federal collection). Private-school demographics are reported biennially and lag public-school data.

Research dossier

St. Francis of Assisi School

Catholic parish school in Burien, near Seahurst · K–8 · 488 students (WA SBE, 2024-25) · WCEA-accredited, inside Highline Public Schools' boundaries.

The verdict

The published tuition here, $10,067 in-parish and $13,070 out-of-parish for 2026-27, is a floor, not a price. St. Francis layers on an annually audited parish-status test worth about $3,000 per child, a $400 fundraising-profit quota through the SCRIP gift-card program, a $250 auction procurement, and 30 volunteer hours billed at $40 apiece if unworked. A family that simply writes checks for all of it lands around $15,200 all-in per out-of-parish child. What that money buys is order and a pipeline: a strictly uniformed, swiftly disciplined, traditional Catholic K-8 whose cohorts hold steady into 8th grade. Graduates flow to Kennedy Catholic, Seattle Prep, O'Dea, Holy Names, and Bishop Blanchet, and notably into Raisbeck Aviation High School, the region's competitive public STEM school. Families comfortable inside the rules and the parish economy get a proven feeder at roughly half what secular independents charge. Families wanting progressive pedagogy, robust special education, or a religious opt-out should not try to bend this school into that shape. The live wildcard is structural: the Archdiocese has grouped the sponsoring parish into "Parish Family #21" with St. Bernadette, which runs its own K-8, and Our Lady of Lourdes, putting long-run questions over the subsidy and the campuses themselves.

Researched 2026-07-04. Citations and claim ledger included in the full dossier.

That is the free excerpt. The full dossier covers what the school's own marketing won't: admissions mechanics and real selectivity, all-in cost and aid behavior, matriculation depth, culture and fit signals, institutional health, every claim cited and dated. Unlock it for $9, or get a $29 Research Pass with 3 dossiers included.

The real comparison is against your public options.

Tuition here runs five figures a year, the question is what it buys over the public schools your address already gives you. A $29 Research Pass unlocks score trends, peer percentiles, competition evidence, gifted-pathway detail, and PTA capacity on every public school in the region, plus 3 full research dossiers for the schools on your shortlist.

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Sources

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