Original Research by School Decision on Palisades School District
The Palisades School District in Douglas County, Washington, is a very small, rural district that serves students from preschool through sixth grade. It is a single-school district, with Palisades Elementary School as its only campus. Because the district does not serve high school grades, there is no high school graduation rate to report. The district covers only the earliest grades, and a parent looking ahead to middle and high school would need to plan for a transition to a neighboring district, as Palisades itself does not offer those grades.
With a very small enrollment, the district operates on an intimate scale. The student body is made up entirely of children from the local area, and the small numbers mean that each grade has just a handful of students. The demographic profile shows that a majority of students are Hispanic, with the next largest group being white students, and a very small number of American Indian or Alaska Native students. Data on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch was not available, so a reader cannot directly gauge the district’s economic profile from the provided information. Similarly, the number of students with disabilities and the number of English learners were not reported.
State testing results for the district are suppressed, meaning the state did not release proficiency rates for math, English language arts, or science. This is typical for a very small district where releasing the numbers could identify individual students. Because the data is suppressed, there is no way to compare the district’s academic performance against other schools or against state averages. A parent should be aware that there is no public test-score picture for this district, which is a direct function of its small size rather than a reflection of school quality.
One area where data is available is chronic absenteeism. The district reports a chronic absenteeism rate that places it in the top quartile among Douglas County’s districts, meaning it has a lower rate of chronic absence than most of its neighbors. This is a positive indicator for consistent student attendance.
The district’s per-pupil current spending is in the upper range compared to other districts in the county. This is a notable point, but the provided data does not explain the factors driving that spending level, such as whether it reflects the fixed costs of running a school for a very small enrollment, or if there are specific program investments.
In terms of housing context, the district’s weighted home value estimate falls below both the Washington state and national benchmarks, making it a relatively more affordable area to buy a home compared to the state as a whole. The district’s housing data is drawn from a single ZIP code serving the Rock Island area.
A search for recent district changes such as referendums, curriculum shifts, or property tax changes did not turn up any significant findings. The publicly reported information is limited to demographic and enrollment data for this very small, single-school district. For a parent or resident, the essential picture is of a tiny, rural elementary district with no publicly available test scores and no high school program, where the small scale may appeal to families seeking a close-knit school environment but also requires planning for the upper grades elsewhere.
See more original research from School Decision →