Mcknight Middle School, Renton WA

Original Research by School Decision on Mcknight Middle School

McKnight Middle School serves grades six through eight in Renton, a midsized city in King County that blends industrial manufacturing (Boeing’s final assembly plant), corporate offices, healthcare, and retail. McKnight is a regular public school and part of the Renton School District. As a middle school, it feeds into the district’s high schools, which recently underwent a redesign into career-themed small learning communities under the RSD Academies initiative. The district also approved a bond in 2022 for school construction and renovation, including a new elementary school opening in 2026, though those changes affect facilities more directly at the elementary and high school levels.

Enrollment at McKnight is robust for a three-grade middle school. The student body is diverse. Latino students make up the largest share, followed by Asian students, then White students, with smaller but noticeable populations of students who identify as two or more races and Black students. About half of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, indicating a middle-income economic mix with a substantial share of households that face financial pressure. Renton itself is a high-cost housing market. Home values in the area are well above national and state medians, and rents are steep, consistent with the broader King County market where affordability is a persistent challenge for many families.

Academically, McKnight’s proficiency rates on state assessments give a mixed picture. In math, fewer than half of students scored proficient in each tested grade, with grade seven showing a slightly higher rate than grades six and eight but still below the halfway mark. In English language arts, the share of students meeting proficiency was also below half across all three grades, though the rates were a bit higher than in math. In eighth-grade science, about two in five students met the standard. When all tested subjects and grades are combined into an overall proficiency index, McKnight falls below the midpoint when compared to other school districts in King County. That is a large and competitive county with many high-performing districts, so this position suggests McKnight’s academic results are softer than typical for the area. A family considering this school may want to ask the school directly about instructional support and any improvement efforts underway.

The data does not include information on chronic absenteeism, discipline, staffing ratios, or course access, so those dimensions cannot be assessed here. The school’s grade band means there is no graduation rate to report, as middle schools do not graduate students. State testing data is available only for the most recent year, so no multi-year trend can be drawn. A parent interested in student support services or programs such as advanced coursework or extracurriculars would need to seek that information directly from the school or the district.

McKnight sits in a community of about that size for its grade band, with a student body that reflects the area’s demographic diversity. The housing market around the school is expensive, and the economic backdrop includes large employers like Boeing that anchor the local economy. The school itself offers no special designation such as magnet or charter status, and no Title I status was reported. For a family looking at Renton, McKnight is a standard public middle school in a district that has invested in facility upgrades and high school programming, but whose proficiency outcomes are not on the higher end of the county spectrum.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 639%

School 39% · District 34% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 1 pts above state median · ▼ 14 pts below county median

Grade 750%

School 50% · District 42% · ▲ 8 pts above district

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

Grade 842%

School 42% · District 35% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 647%

School 47% · District 44% · ▲ 4 pts above district

even with state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

Grade 749%

School 49% · District 48% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▼ 14 pts below county median

Grade 848%

School 48% · District 48%

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

Science

Grade 840%

School 40% · District 39% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

This schoolRenton 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 5Lower-income20%Higher-income58%38 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income30%Higher-income68%39 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income29%Higher-income68%38 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income33%Higher-income62%29 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income17%Higher-income45%28 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income18%Higher-income62%44 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income26%Higher-income71%45 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income33%Higher-income51%18 pp gap