Original Research by School Decision on Dr. Dolores Silas High School
Dr. Dolores Silas High School is a regular public high school in the Tacoma School District, serving students from ninth through twelfth grade. It is located in Tacoma, a mid-sized port city and the county seat of Pierce County that combines a working waterfront and industrial port with distinct residential neighborhoods like Hilltop, Proctor, and the Stadium District. The city blends a blue-collar industrial heritage with a growing arts, dining, and higher-education presence, and its largest employment sectors are healthcare, retail, and education. The school sits within a city that is growing steadily, with population and property values on the rise, though the homeownership rate trails the national average.
The school serves just over a thousand students, making it a large high school by enrollment. The student body is predominantly white, with a substantial share of students identifying as two or more races, along with smaller but notable populations of Hispanic, Black, and Asian students. About half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which signals that a significant portion of families have lower household incomes. Data on special education and English learner enrollment was not available for this school, so a parent might want to ask the school directly about the supports in place for those students.
State testing results for the most recent year show a mixed academic picture. In English language arts, a majority of students met the proficiency standard, which is a solid outcome for a comprehensive high school. Science proficiency was more moderate, with about half of students meeting the bar. Math performance is a clear area of concern, as fewer than a fifth of students tested at the proficient level. This pattern—stronger in literacy and weaker in math—is not unusual nationally, but the math figure is low enough that a parent with a student who struggles in that subject would want to investigate what remediation or support programs the school offers. Because only a single year of test data was available, it is not possible to see whether these scores reflect a recent trend or a longer-standing pattern.
The school does not have a reported graduation rate in the data, which is an important gap. For a traditional high school serving a full four-year cohort, a graduation rate is typically one of the primary accountability measures. A parent should ask the school directly for its four-year graduation rate and any available cohort completion data, as that figure tells a lot about how well the school supports students through to a diploma.
Compared to other districts in Pierce County, the school could not be positioned on overall proficiency, graduation rate, or chronic absenteeism because those metrics were not available at the school level in the comparison data. That means the reader does not get a county-wide benchmark to place this school’s results against other local high schools.
No information was provided about course offerings, Advanced Placement or dual-credit programs, career and technical education pathways, or extracurriculars. A parent evaluating this school should seek out that information from the school or district to understand the breadth of academic options available. Likewise, discipline data and staffing ratios were absent from the available data, so there is no way to assess school climate from this record alone. The district’s recent history, including any boundary changes or school closures, was also not available in the data provided.
In short, Dr. Dolores Silas High School is a large, traditional public high school in a growing and economically diverse city. Its academic results are uneven—stronger in English and science, weaker in math—and key performance indicators like the graduation rate were absent from the available data. Families considering this school will want to follow up with the school directly on math support, graduation outcomes, and the full range of programs offered.
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