Ocean Shores Elementary, Ocean Shores WA

Original Research by School Decision on Ocean Shores Elementary

Ocean Shores Elementary serves students from pre-kindergarten through sixth grade in a coastal town on a six-mile peninsula where the Pacific Ocean meets Grays Harbor. The school is part of the North Beach School District, and because it ends at sixth grade, there is no graduation rate to report. The student body draws from a community with a strong tourism and retirement character, where a substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

The school's state assessment results come from the 2024-25 school year, the only year available in the data, so no trend can be established. In English language arts, the share of students meeting proficiency varied by grade, with the highest performance in fifth grade and the lowest in sixth grade. In math, proficiency was highest in fourth grade and also fell in sixth grade. Science was tested only in fifth grade, where about half of students met the proficiency bar. Across all tested subjects and grades combined, the school's overall proficiency index sits above the midpoint among districts in Grays Harbor County, though performance is concentrated in the earlier tested grades and drops noticeably as students reach sixth grade, a pattern a parent may want to discuss with the school.

The school community experienced a structural change recently: starting in the 2023-24 school year, sixth graders were moved back to Ocean Shores Elementary and the district's other elementary campus rather than attending the middle school. This means sixth graders are now in an elementary setting, a lasting shift with implications for how the school organizes instruction and how students transition to middle school the following year.

The town of Ocean Shores itself is a planned resort community developed in the 1960s, with steady population growth over recent decades. The main commercial corridor along Point Brown Avenue is described as walkable, with shops, restaurants, and lodging clustered there. Beyond that strip, getting to the beach, Damon Point, or outlying areas typically requires a vehicle or bicycle. The school buildings are not located within the commercial center but on separate campuses around the area. The community has a significant visitor economy, drawing an estimated three million visitors annually, and has a strong retirement character. Civic anchors include a convention center, a municipal airport, a golf course, parks along Duck Lake, and an extensive network of freshwater canals. The school is located in a tsunami hazard zone, and a 2022 bond measure to fund a vertical evacuation shelter was rejected by voters, though state and federal funds were later allocated for a scaled-back shelter design.

Housing in the area has seen modest recent shifts in value, and monthly rent estimates are somewhat below the national income-to-rent benchmark, suggesting that housing costs are manageable relative to local incomes, though the data available does not include the town's median household income for a direct comparison.

State testing data was available only for a single year, and the school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate. The data also did not include information on student discipline, course access, staffing ratios, or chronic absenteeism. The school's overall proficiency index places it above the midpoint among Grays Harbor County districts, meaning it performs better than some peers in the county but not at the top. A parent considering the school will want to understand why proficiency drops in sixth grade and whether the grade reconfiguration has addressed that pattern, as well as how the school supports students who arrive below grade level, given the high rate of economic disadvantage in the student body.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 339%

School 39% · District 39%

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Grade 448%

School 48% · District 48%

▲ 1 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 529%

School 29% · District 29%

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 624%

School 24% · District 24%

▼ 14 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 330%

School 30% · District 30%

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 439%

School 39% · District 39%

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 545%

School 45% · District 45%

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 624%

School 24% · District 24%

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Science

Grade 552%

School 52% · District 52%

even with state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

This schoolNorth Beach School District No. 64, 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-income32%Higher-income27%4 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income41%Higher-income56%15 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income36%Higher-income46%9 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income23%Higher-income44%22 pp gap