Reardan Elementary School, Reardan WA

Original Research by School Decision on Reardan Elementary School

Reardan Elementary School serves kindergarten through sixth grade in the small agricultural town of Reardan, roughly a half-hour drive west of Spokane. The school is the elementary arm of the Reardan-Edwall School District, and its location within the town itself rather than on a remote campus means students walk or ride a short distance to a school that doubles as a community anchor. Mule Days, the town’s long-running June festival, includes a basketball tournament held in front of the high school, an illustration of how the district’s buildings thread into local life.

The student body is predominantly white, with a notable Native American presence and small shares of Hispanic and multiracial students. About half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a share that signals a community with significant economic need but one that is not among the most distressed in the region. Because the school serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and no data on chronic absenteeism or special-education enrollment was available; a parent may want to ask the school directly about those areas.

State testing results from the most recent year show a mixed picture. In English language arts, roughly half of students met the state’s proficiency bar, with fourth graders performing strongest on that measure and third graders weakest. Math proficiency was lower overall, with about two in five students meeting the bar and a dip in the upper elementary grades. Science, tested only in fifth grade, fell near the same range as math. Compared with other school districts in Lincoln County, Reardan Elementary’s combined proficiency across subjects sits below the midpoint of the cohort. The spread among county districts is fairly wide, and Reardan lands near the middle of that range rather than at either extreme.

The school’s academic profile fits a pattern common in small rural elementary schools: strong pockets of performance in certain grades and subjects, but not consistently across the board. A parent considering the school should weigh the convenience and community integration of a hometown elementary against the test-score picture, and may want to inquire about intervention supports, enrichment offerings, and class sizes, none of which were detailed in the available data.

Reardan itself is a compact town rooted in wheat farming and grain shipping, with a modest population that has grown in recent decades partly because of its proximity to Spokane and Fairchild Air Force Base. The housing market has become less affordable over time, though home values remain well below the state average. Audubon Lake, a managed wetland known among birders, and the Inland Northwest Rail Museum are the town’s distinctive civic assets. No major new housing developments or commercial projects were mentioned in the sources reviewed, and the district did not appear to have undertaken any large-scale changes in the past several years that would reshape the elementary experience. For families who value a small-town setting and a school woven into the fabric of the community, Reardan Elementary offers a straightforward, traditional elementary education with an academic record that merits a closer look.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 357%

School 57% · District 58% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▲ 6 pts above state median

Grade 437%

School 37% · District 37%

▼ 11 pts below state median

Grade 534%

School 34% · District 33% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 6 pts below state median

Grade 644%

School 44% · District 44%

▲ 7 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 335%

School 35% · District 34% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 12 pts below state median

Grade 457%

School 57% · District 56% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 8 pts above state median

Grade 548%

School 48% · District 47% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 6 pts below state median

Grade 646%

School 46% · District 46%

▼ 2 pts below state median

Science

Grade 542%

School 42% · District 41% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 10 pts below state median

This schoolReardan-Edwall 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-income22%Higher-income53%30 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income50%Higher-income69%19 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income33%Higher-income63%29 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income33%Higher-income56%22 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income48%Higher-income68%20 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income37%Higher-income38%1 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income21%Higher-income47%26 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income33%Higher-income52%19 pp gap