Original Research by School Decision on Touchstone
Touchstone, a regular public school in Olympia, Washington, serves grades six through twelve and is part of the Olympia School District. It is a very small school, with an enrollment that numbers only in the single digits. Because the school is so small, typical metrics that parents and residents use to evaluate a school are either absent or not applicable.
State testing data is not available for Touchstone. The school is too small to produce the kind of aggregate proficiency numbers that states publish for larger schools. A graduation rate is also absent, for the same reason. Without these standard academic performance measures, a family cannot compare Touchstone to neighboring schools in Thurston County based on test scores or completion rates. This is a direct consequence of its size, not a reflection on the quality of instruction.
The student body is composed of a handful of individuals. The racial and ethnic makeup reported shows representation from several groups. The available data flags a small number of Black students, Hispanic students, and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander students. There are no records for students receiving free or reduced-price lunch, students with disabilities served under an IEP, or English learners. In a school this small, any of those rates would be heavily influenced by the circumstances of a single student.
The school is located in Washington’s capital city. Olympia has a population of a modest size and sits at the southern tip of Puget Sound. State government is the dominant employer. The city also has a notable music and arts identity, particularly tied to the 1990s punk and riot grrrl movements, and is home to The Evergreen State College. The Olympia School District, for its part, did not have any parent-relevant changes like boundary shifts or program closures that surfaced in a recent search.
Housing in the area around Touchstone is valued at a level above the national median but slightly below the state median, and rents have been flat to rising in recent history. For a family considering a move to this attendance zone, affordability relative to the local median income is a factor worth weighing.
A school this size is unusual. There is no formal alternative designation in its type — it is a regular school — but with a total enrollment of a handful of students spanning seven grade levels, it functions as a highly specialized environment. A parent would want to contact the school directly to understand the academic model, how courses are taught across multiple grades, and what kind of peer interaction and extracurricular options exist. The available data cannot answer those questions.
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