Original Research by School Decision on The Community School
The Community School is a regular public high school in Spokane, serving grades nine through twelve as part of the Spokane School District. It is a small high school by enrollment, with a student body that is predominantly white and includes smaller shares of students who identify as two or more races, Hispanic, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Asian. More than half of its students come from households with incomes low enough to qualify for free or reduced-price meals, which places the school in a moderate-to-high poverty context relative to many Spokane-area schools.
Academically, the picture comes entirely from the most recent state testing results, which cover a single school year and represent the only data available on proficiency. In English language arts, just under half of tested students scored at the proficient level. In mathematics, the share reached less than a fifth, a soft spot that a parent may want to explore further with the school. Science proficiency was higher, with roughly half of students meeting the bar. Because this is a single snapshot, there is no trend to show improvement or decline, and no comparison to district or county averages for this school appears in the available data. The school serves only high school grades, so no earlier-grade testing data applies. No graduation rate is reported, which may reflect that the school does not yet have a four-year cohort tracked to completion, or that the rate was simply not included in the information provided. A parent interested in post-secondary outcomes would need to ask directly.
The school sits at a Spofford Avenue address within Spokane, a city that functions as the economic and cultural hub of the Inland Northwest. Spokane is the second-most populous city in Washington, with a history rooted in mining, timber, and agriculture that has since broadened into healthcare, government, education, and logistics. Downtown Spokane is organized around the Spokane River and Riverfront Park, home to large annual events such as the Lilac Bloomsday Run and Hoopfest. Housing values in the school’s zip code are well below the state average for Washington, reflecting the relative affordability of the region compared to the western side of the state. Rents have been rising moderately, though the area remains more accessible than the Seattle corridor. Major employers include Fairchild Air Force Base, Providence Health Care, Spokane Public Schools itself, and Amazon.
The parent district, Spokane Public Schools, has undergone a significant facility change in recent years with the opening of three new middle schools funded by a large construction bond. Those new schools opened in the early 2020s and have reshaped middle school feeder patterns across the district. That shift may indirectly affect the mix of students arriving at The Community School, though the school itself is a high school and the bond did not target its building. No information was available about programs, such as Advanced Placement, career and technical education pathways, or dual-credit offerings, at The Community School. A parent or resident considering the school would want to ask about those directly, as they are important markers of academic opportunity in a small high school setting.
A few gaps stand out. Civil rights data on discipline, staffing ratios, and course access were not provided. Attendance and chronic absenteeism rates are missing. The school environment section offers no locale classification, and the neighbor comparison system could not compute a proficiency index for this school because the necessary data was unavailable. None of these gaps necessarily indicate a problem; they may reflect the limits of what was reported for this school. But they do mean that a family evaluating The Community School would need to gather additional information from the school itself or the district office to fill in the picture of daily experience and academic opportunity.
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