The top reported proficiency rate is 89% in English language arts. The lowest is 83% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Cherry Crest Elementary School
Cherry Crest Elementary School is a regular public elementary school in Bellevue, part of the Bellevue School District. It serves students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. The school’s enrollment is large for an elementary building, and its student body is predominantly Asian, with a smaller white population and students identifying as two or more races. Very few students are Black, Hispanic, or American Indian or Alaska Native. The share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch is minimal, a reflection of the surrounding community.
State testing results place Cherry Crest among the strongest performing elementary schools in Washington, and its overall proficiency index sits in the top quartile of elementary schools relative to districts across King County. In math, the school’s third and fifth graders posted proficiency rates well above state averages, while fourth-grade math results were suppressed and not reported. In English language arts, proficiency was strong across all tested grades, with fifth graders scoring the highest. Fifth-grade science results were also high. The district has not publicly reported recent trend data for the school, so only a single year’s snapshot is available, but that snapshot shows uniformly high achievement. For a family focused on academic outcomes, these results are a clear draw.
The school is located in a highly affluent part of Bellevue. Housing values in the zip code are very high and slightly above the already elevated King County median. Rents are also high. The broader Bellevue housing market has seen a slight softening in list prices and an uptick in days on market compared to a year ago, but the area remains expensive by any measure. The countywide unemployment rate is moderate, and the 30-year mortgage rate is in the six-percent range. A parent considering Cherry Crest should be prepared for a high cost of entry into the neighborhood.
Bellevue itself is the commercial and tech hub of the Eastside, home to major employers like Amazon, T-Mobile, Meta, and a host of other technology companies. Downtown is a dense, high-rise core, but much of the city retains a suburban character with wooded neighborhoods and an extensive park and trail system. Rapid growth is reshaping parts of the city, particularly the BelRed and Spring District corridors, where light rail has spurred significant redevelopment. The city’s population has grown substantially in recent years and is now majority non-white, with a large foreign-born population drawn by the region’s tech economy. Cherry Crest sits in a residential area within this dynamic, high-cost, fast-growing city.
The Bellevue School District itself appears stable, with no recent major parent-relevant changes publicly identified in this review. That suggests continuity in programming and leadership for families entering the system.
Cherry Crest’s profile is that of a high-performing, demographically distinct elementary school in an expensive and economically vibrant city. It fits a family that prioritizes strong measured academic outcomes, can afford the local housing market, and values a setting where the student body is not economically diverse. The lack of data on chronic absenteeism, special education identification rates, and English learner enrollment means those dimensions cannot be assessed from this information. A parent with a child who has specific learning needs or who values economic diversity in the classroom may want to inquire further with the school directly.
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