Best Public Schools in Garfield, WA

Garfield, Washington, has two public schools serving 82 students from prekindergarten through eighth grade: Garfield Elementary serves grades PK–5, while Garfield Middle School serves grades 6–8, with no local high school or separate secondary campus. Both schools are part of the Garfield School District, which ranks 64th out of 238 Washington districts, placing it in the 73rd percentile. The schools are very small, with 51 elementary students and 31 middle school students, so results can change noticeably when only a few students move between performance levels.

Garfield Elementary is the stronger academic performer. In 2025–26, 62.96% of students were proficient in English Language Arts and 59.26% in math, exceeding both district and state averages. The school also improved from the prior year, gaining 4.63 percentage points in ELA and 9.26 points in math. Its student-teacher ratio is 9.7, enrollment is 51, and spending is $34,489 per student. Parents should note that some grade-level results, including science and several elementary grades, were suppressed, so the available all-school results do not show performance in every grade.

Garfield Middle School has a different profile. Science is its strongest subject, with 54.55% proficiency, slightly above the state result of 50.95%. However, ELA proficiency was 36.59% and math proficiency was only 19.51%, both well below state averages. The school has just 31 students, a very low 6.1 student-teacher ratio, and $44,220 in spending per student. For parents, the main issue to investigate is the sharp decline from elementary to middle school, especially in math: elementary math proficiency was 59.26% compared with 19.51% in middle school. The district may benefit from focusing on the fifth-to-sixth-grade transition, middle school math support, and applying successful science practices to other subjects.