The top reported proficiency rate is 40% in English language arts. The lowest is 30% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Columbia River Elementary
Columbia River Elementary serves students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school in the Pasco School District. It is one of the district’s elementary options for families living in its attendance boundary.
The school’s student body reflects the broader Pasco community, where a majority of students are Hispanic and white students make up the next largest group. More than half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, indicating a substantial share of families working with modest incomes. The district has not reported the share of students who receive special education services or are English learners, so that dimension of the school’s support structure is not available to assess.
On the state assessments administered in the 2024-25 school year, Columbia River’s results show a pattern that parents will want to consider carefully. In third grade, just under half of students met the English language arts standard, while in fourth grade that figure was somewhat lower. By fifth grade, the share meeting that standard was roughly a quarter. In math, the pattern is similar: third grade had the highest proficiency rate, fourth grade came in somewhat lower, and fifth grade fell further to about a quarter of students reaching the bar. In fifth-grade science, about three in ten students scored proficient. Across all tested subjects and grades, the school’s overall proficiency index places it in the top quartile relative to other elementary schools within Franklin County. That means it performs higher than most of its county peers, but because the county itself includes districts with a range of outcomes, the local competition set is what that comparison reflects. The proficiency numbers themselves are available in the data sections on this page for anyone who wants the precise figures.
Columbia River is a regular public school and does not have magnet or charter status. Data on discipline rates, staffing ratios, chronic absenteeism, and course access were not available for this profile, so those areas of school life are not possible to describe here with sourced evidence.
The school is part of the Pasco School District, which has undergone several recent changes that affect families. Voters approved a bond in early 2023 to build a new comprehensive high school, Sageview High, which opened for the 2025-26 school year to relieve overcrowding at Chiawana High. The district also launched a Digital Learning Academy in 2023, consolidating multiple online programs into a single remote option. In early 2024, the district purchased land near the new high school site for a future elementary or middle school, a sign that continued growth in West Pasco will lead to more boundary adjustments and new schools.
Pasco itself is one of the three Tri-Cities and has been among the fastest-growing cities in Washington. Growth has been concentrated in West Pasco, where large new housing tracts and shopping centers have replaced former farmland. The city retains a strong agricultural-industrial base with major food processors and the BNSF Railway yard, while the Hanford nuclear site and its contractors remain significant employers. Downtown Pasco remains a civic anchor with a farmers market and riverfront parks, but the city’s overall built environment is sprawling and car-oriented.
For a family considering Columbia River Elementary, the academic picture is one of a school that outperforms its immediate county peers on a composite index but where individual grade-level proficiency rates show a decline in both math and English language arts as students move from third to fifth grade. The school serves a majority low-income population in a rapidly growing district that is investing in new facilities. The missing data on special education and English learner populations means a parent who needs those supports may want to ask the school directly about how those services are structured. The district’s ongoing expansion and the opening of a new high school and career center suggest that the elementary attendance boundaries may shift in the coming years as new schools are built.
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