Summary:
ZIP code 98053 has one high school: Nikola Tesla STEM High School, serving grades 9–12 in the Redmond area. The school enrolls 605 students and is part of the highly rated Lake Washington School District, which ranks fourth among 238 Washington districts and is in the 98th percentile statewide. Because there is no second high school in the ZIP code, families cannot make a direct local school-to-school comparison; the most useful comparisons are with the district, state, and the school’s own historical results.
Nikola Tesla STEM High School has been one of Washington’s highest-ranked schools, ranking first statewide in 2022–2023 and 2023–2024, and second in 2024–2025. Its 2024–2025 academic results were exceptional: 98.6% of students were proficient in English Language Arts, 94.44% in math, and 98.52% in science. These results exceeded district averages by roughly 18 to 20 percentage points and state averages by approximately 45 to 52 points. The school also reported a 97.8% graduation rate, compared with 94.2% for the district and 82.6% statewide. Math was the school’s lowest subject result, but it remained a very strong outcome.
For parents, the school’s consistent top rankings, strong test scores, and high graduation rate are its most important strengths. It has a student-teacher ratio of 20.6:1 and reported per-student spending of $16,723. Only 2.98% of students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating that the school serves a population with relatively low measured economic need; this is useful context when comparing results with statewide averages. The school’s 2025–2026 test scores are suppressed, so current school-level proficiency cannot be determined from the available data. The suppression should not be interpreted as poor performance or a decline. Overall, the available evidence describes a selective, academically outstanding high school within a strong district.
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