Olympic View Elem vs Hillcrest Elementary

Hillcrest Elementary ranks #40 of 2,225 Washington elementary schools, placing it in the top 2% statewide. Olympic View Elem sits at #84 of 2,225 — still a top-4% finish, but 44 spots behind Hillcrest. That gap narrows when you look at the overall rating: Hillcrest Elementary scores 9.3/10 versus Olympic View Elem's 9.1/10, a difference of 0.2 points. Both schools clear a high bar; the state rank context is where the separation becomes more meaningful.

The clearest academic divergence sits in proficiency scores. Hillcrest Elementary's academic score is 9.3/10 against Olympic View Elem's 7.6/10 — a 1.7-point gap that reflects a measurable difference in tested proficiency outcomes. Olympic View Elem reverses the advantage on growth: its growth score of 9.9/10 outpaces Hillcrest Elementary's 9.4/10, meaning students at Olympic View Elem are advancing at a faster rate relative to their starting points, even if absolute proficiency levels trail. For families weighing where a child enters versus how fast they'll progress, these two numbers pull in opposite directions.

Olympic View Elem serves 440 students at a student-teacher ratio of 13.8:1, compared to Hillcrest Elementary's 509 students and a 16.4:1 ratio — nearly three additional students per teacher. Olympic View Elem also enrolls 60% of students on free or reduced lunch, versus 35% at Hillcrest Elementary. That 25-percentage-point gap signals a meaningfully different socioeconomic mix and likely reflects different concentrations of support services, Title I funding eligibility, and family resource levels across the two campuses, which sit just 2.0 miles apart.

Both schools serve grades KG through 04, so neither offers an extended grade span advantage. The structural difference is class size and resource environment: Olympic View Elem's lower ratio gives teachers more individual attention capacity per student, while Hillcrest Elementary's higher proficiency scores suggest stronger aggregate academic outcomes at the point of measurement.