Parkway Elementary, Clarkston WA

Original Research by School Decision on Parkway Elementary

Parkway Elementary serves kindergarten through sixth grade in Clarkston, a small, compact riverfront city that shares the Snake River valley with its larger twin, Lewiston, Idaho. The school sits within the Clarkston School District and is one of four elementary buildings that remain after the district closed two elementary schools in 2023, a restructuring driven by declining enrollment and state funding reductions that reshuffled attendance boundaries and class sizes across the district. A district bond to address aging facilities, including roof replacements and HVAC upgrades, failed at the polls in late 2024, so the infrastructure needs of Parkway and other schools remain an open question.

The school’s student body is predominantly white, with a Hispanic population making up the next largest share and smaller groups of students who are two or more races, American Indian or Alaska Native, Black, and Asian. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, giving Parkway a profile of a school serving a community with modest household incomes in a city where housing has been relatively affordable and the economy has long centered on the Port of Clarkston’s barge traffic, wheat agriculture, and related riverfront activity.

On the Washington state assessments, Parkway’s results show a pattern that families should weigh carefully. In English language arts, the portion of students meeting proficiency across grades three through six falls below the halfway mark, with grade five showing the strongest share and grade four the weakest. Math proficiency is notably lower across all grades, with sixth grade particularly soft and grades three, four, and five clustered in a modest range that still trails the state’s midpoint. Science results, available only for fifth grade, land at the halfway point. The school’s overall proficiency index, which combines all tested subjects and grades, places it above the midpoint among the two school districts in Asotin County, a comparison that reflects the county’s limited set of districts rather than a wide regional benchmark. A parent looking at these scores may want to ask the school how it supports students who are not yet meeting benchmarks, especially in math and in the upper elementary grades where the slide is most visible.

No data was available on chronic absenteeism, student discipline, or staffing ratios, so it is not possible to speak to those dimensions from this profile. The school’s grade span means there is no graduation rate to report. The district’s recent elementary consolidation has likely changed the peer dynamics at Parkway, as students from the closed schools were redistributed here, and the rejection of the facilities bond leaves the physical condition of the building an open question that families making a housing choice may want to investigate directly.

Parkway Elementary offers a standard elementary program in a district that has been shrinking and reorganizing. For a family already living in Clarkston’s west side attendance zone, it is the neighborhood school. For a family moving into the area, the academic picture calls for a closer look at how the school addresses gaps in math and reading, and the district’s recent and unresolved facility and funding challenges are worth understanding before making a commitment.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 350%

School 50% · District 47% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▼ 1 pts below state median

Grade 439%

School 39% · District 37% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▼ 9 pts below state median

Grade 541%

School 41% · District 38% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▲ 1 pts above state median

Grade 619%

School 19% · District 30% · ▼ 11 pts below district

▼ 19 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 345%

School 45% · District 43% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▼ 2 pts below state median

Grade 441%

School 41% · District 40% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▼ 8 pts below state median

Grade 548%

School 48% · District 46% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▼ 6 pts below state median

Grade 642%

School 42% · District 42%

▼ 5 pts below state median

Science

Grade 550%

School 50% · District 49% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 2 pts below state median

This schoolClarkston 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-income46%Higher-income44%2 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income39%Higher-income47%8 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income39%Higher-income61%23 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income40%Higher-income44%4 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income50%Higher-income50%0 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income45%Higher-income27%18 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income31%Higher-income56%25 pp gap