Mt. Stuart Elementary, Ellensburg WA

Original Research by School Decision on Mt. Stuart Elementary

Mt. Stuart Elementary serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Ellensburg, a college town and the county seat of Kittitas County. The city sits in an agricultural valley known for timothy hay production, and Central Washington University is a major presence on a large campus within the community. Ellensburg’s historic downtown core is walkable and active, with brick buildings, a farmers market, and a fare-free bus system. The population has been growing, driven in part by a new WinCo Foods distribution center under construction.

The school is one of four elementary schools in the Ellensburg School District. The district opened Ida Nason Aronica Elementary in fall 2022 to address enrollment growth, and boundary adjustments that year changed which elementary school children attend based on residential address. In early 2024, a district capital bond for safety upgrades, roofing, and HVAC improvements failed to reach the required supermajority, leaving those facility projects unfunded. The district board has discussed next steps, including a possible revised bond. A replacement Educational Programs and Operations levy, approved in 2022, funds staffing, curriculum, and student support through 2026.

Mt. Stuart Elementary’s enrollment is moderate for its grade band. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The student body is predominantly white, with a notable Hispanic population and small representations of other racial and ethnic groups. The school is a regular public school, not a charter.

State assessment results from the most recent testing year are available for math, English language arts, and science. In math, proficiency rates across grades three through five clustered around a range that ran from below half of students to just under half. In English language arts, the share of students meeting proficiency started well below half in third grade and rose grade by grade, reaching above half by fifth grade. In fifth-grade science, about half of students were proficient. Overall, the school’s combined proficiency index across all tested subjects and grades placed it in the top quartile relative to other districts in Kittitas County. Only a single year of assessment data is available for this school, so there is no trend to report.

Because Mt. Stuart Elementary serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to consider. Chronic absenteeism data and information on discipline, course access, staffing, and attendance were not available in the source data. A parent may want to ask the school directly about these topics. No data on special education or English learner populations was provided, either.

The school offers no program-specific data in the record reviewed, so it is not possible to detail any specialized offerings. For a family considering this school, the key takeaway is that it is a standard elementary school in a growing college town, with academic performance that sits well relative to other schools in the county but with room for improvement, particularly in early-grade literacy and elementary math. The nearby presence of the university and the historic downtown create a distinctive community context, and the recent boundary changes and failed bond are current factors that may affect a family’s decision.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 340%

School 40% · District 49% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median

Grade 449%

School 49% · District 49%

▲ 1 pts above state median

Grade 538%

School 38% · District 41% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▼ 2 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 333%

School 33% · District 47% · ▼ 14 pts below district

▼ 14 pts below state median

Grade 443%

School 43% · District 43% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 6 pts below state median

Grade 556%

School 56% · District 57% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▲ 3 pts above state median

Science

Grade 548%

School 48% · District 55% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median

This schoolEllensburg 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-income17%Higher-income50%33 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income15%Higher-income70%55 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income50%Higher-income65%15 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income21%Higher-income61%40 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income19%Higher-income78%59 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income30%Higher-income50%20 pp gap