University Elementary School, Spokane Valley WA

Original Research by School Decision on University Elementary School

University Elementary School serves students from prekindergarten through fifth grade in Spokane Valley, part of the Central Valley School District. It is a regular public school with a modest enrollment that leans predominantly white, alongside smaller shares of Hispanic students and students identifying as two or more races. A substantial portion of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating that the school serves a community with significant economic need. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not provided, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about those support structures.

On state assessments, the school’s overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades sits above the midpoint when compared with other districts in Spokane County. The results are uneven across grade levels. In third grade, a clear majority of students met the bar in both English language arts and math. Fifth graders also turned in a solid performance in both subjects, and a little over half hit the proficiency mark in science. Fourth grade, however, was a soft spot, with fewer than half of students proficient in math and ELA. The single year of data makes it impossible to see a trend, but the drop-off in fourth grade is a reasonable point for a parent to raise with the school.

Spokane Valley is the largest suburb of Spokane, a sprawling, auto-oriented city formed from a collection of formerly unincorporated communities. It lacks a traditional downtown core; commercial and civic life is strung along major arterials such as Sprague Avenue, with nodes around the Spokane Valley Mall and the CenterPlace Regional Event Center. The housing market reflects a mix of older suburban neighborhoods and ongoing development, with home values and rents sitting below the state median, making the area comparatively more attainable for families. The city continues to grow, with room for residential and commercial expansion.

The Central Valley School District, which operates University Elementary, runs several dozen schools and manages a general fund budget that reflects the scale of a mid-sized suburban district. The district’s Educational Programs and Operations levy supplies a portion of local funding for maintenance and operations; a replacement levy passed recently, though it does not fund new construction. This has implications for property taxes and for what the district can invest in facilities, but the levy is a general operational measure, not a capital bond.

Given that University Elementary is an elementary school, it has no graduation rate to report, and the chronic-absenteeism data was also absent. The school’s website was not provided in the data, so a parent looking for details on after-school offerings, parent-teacher groups, or specific instructional approaches would need to seek those out directly. The school is one of many elementary options within Central Valley, and its academic profile, with a strong third and fifth grade but a weaker fourth, suggests that a conversation about how the school addresses that transition could be helpful. For a family weighing this school, the key considerations are the economic context of the student body, the uneven proficiency pattern by grade, and the broader suburban setting of Spokane Valley, which offers a range of amenities but depends on driving for most errands and activities.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 356%

School 56% · District 32% · ▲ 25 pts above district

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Grade 438%

School 38% · District 58% · ▼ 19 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 561%

School 61% · District 40% · ▲ 21 pts above district

▲ 21 pts above state median · ▲ 20 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 362%

School 62% · District 26% · ▲ 35 pts above district

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

Grade 447%

School 47% · District 31% · ▲ 16 pts above district

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Grade 563%

School 63% · District 61% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Science

Grade 556%

School 56% · District 59% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▲ 4 pts above state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

This schoolCentral Valley School District, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income54%Higher-income73%19 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income45%Higher-income50%5 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income53%Higher-income77%24 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income50%Higher-income67%17 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income32%Higher-income47%15 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income50%Higher-income77%27 pp gap