Summary:
ZIP code 98506 has one high school, North Thurston High School, serving grades 9–12 in the North Thurston Public Schools district. The school enrolls 1,378 students and offers a mixed academic profile, with particularly strong English language arts, solid science and graduation results, and math performance that needs improvement.
North Thurston High School is strongest in English language arts: 73.8% of students were proficient in 2025–2026, compared with 52.4% in the North Thurston Public Schools district and 52.81% statewide. Science was also slightly above district and state results, with 54.43% of students proficient. The school’s 88.2% graduation rate was higher than both the district’s 86.8% and Washington’s 82.6%, while its 7.7% dropout rate was lower than the district and state rates. These completion results are encouraging for families considering the school.
Mathematics is the school’s clearest challenge. Only 28.36% of students were proficient in all-grades math, below the district’s 38.63% and the state’s 43.11%. Math proficiency also fell 7.3 percentage points from the previous year, while ELA and science remained nearly steady. The school’s ranking improved over the longer term, rising from 175th of 437 schools in 2023–2024 to 129th of 396 in 2025–2026, although its percentile dipped slightly from the prior year. With about half of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch and a reported student-teacher ratio of 21.4, families may want to ask about math support, class sizes, tutoring, and strategies for addressing the recent math decline.
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