A B+ puts Port Townsend at the top of Jefferson County’s current Niche school district listings. It also puts it in a story about the county’s three lowest grades.
The explanation is straightforward: Niche’s 2027 Jefferson County listing, its latest available edition, includes just three districts with overall grades. Featuring the three lowest therefore means including every district listed, with grades ranging from B+ to C.
That distinction matters. The federal school district directory identifies five districts in Jefferson County. Brinnon and Queets-Clearwater do not appear in Niche’s county listing and are outside this comparison.
Below, we move from the highest overall grade among the three listed districts to the lowest. There are no ties—and no invented numerical ranking positions. Along the way, the category grades reveal strengths that deserve more attention than a single letter allows.
Port Townsend School District — Overall Niche Grade: B+
Port Townsend belongs here because of the listing’s limited size. Its B+ is the highest overall grade among Jefferson County’s three listed districts.
The district’s Niche profile gives teachers an A−, while academics, diversity, administration, and resources and facilities each receive a B. That teacher grade is a particular strength, even as academic outcomes leave room for improvement.
Serving Port Townsend and surrounding areas, the district enrolled approximately 1,277 students in 2024–25, with about 18 students per teacher.
Among students taking the state’s Smarter Balanced assessments that year, approximately 54% met English language arts standards and 39% met math standards.
Its four-year graduation rate for the class of 2025 was approximately 84.7%. Taken together, the figures give families several useful questions to explore, especially about math support, without turning a comparatively favorable overall evaluation into a warning label.
Chimacum School District — Overall Niche Grade: C+
Chimacum’s report card has a noticeable split: Academics receive a C+, while teachers and resources and facilities each earn a B.
The district serves communities including Chimacum, Port Hadlock, Irondale, Port Ludlow and Marrowstone Island. It enrolled approximately 704 students in 2024–25, with about 16 students per teacher—the lowest staffing ratio among the three districts featured here.
State assessment results show approximately 46% of students tested met English language arts standards, compared with 28% in math. That 18-percentage-point gap makes math instruction and intervention especially relevant subjects for families to discuss with their schools.
Meanwhile, Niche’s district profile awards B grades for diversity and sports, and a C+ for administration. The class-of-2025 four-year graduation rate was approximately 83.7%.
The overall C+ captures part of that picture. The category grades and student outcomes give it considerably more definition.
Quilcene School District — Overall Niche Grade: C
Quilcene receives the lowest overall grade in Niche’s Jefferson County listing, but its teacher evaluation offers a brighter finding.
The district’s Niche profile gives teachers a B, compared with a C for academics, C+ for resources and facilities, and C− for administration. Approximately 37% of students tested met English language arts standards in 2024–25, while 34% met math standards.
Enrollment totaled approximately 580 students, with about 21 students per teacher. That districtwide count extends beyond the local campus: Quilcene also operates PEARL Alternative Remote Learning, which serves students throughout Washington.
For the class of 2025, OSPI reports the district’s four-year graduation rate only as above 87%, withholding the exact percentage.
Those distinctions matter when comparing a small district with a statewide remote-learning program against districts whose enrollment and programs are organized differently.
Understanding the numbers
Enrollment and staffing figures come from NCES records for 2024–25. Student-teacher ratios are rounded districtwide staffing measures; they do not describe the size of every classroom.
Academic percentages are rounded from OSPI’s 2024–25 assessment data, using all-student, all-tested-grade Smarter Balanced results. “Reading” refers here to English language arts.
Graduation figures come from OSPI’s 2024–25 graduation dataset and describe four-year adjusted cohorts. They are separate from the graduation averages displayed on Niche’s profiles.
Quilcene’s exact rate is suppressed in the state data, so a more precise percentage cannot be reported from that source.
How Niche reaches its grades
Under Niche’s published 2027 methodology, academics account for 50% of the overall evaluation and teachers account for 15%. Culture and diversity, and parent/student surveys about overall experience, each contribute 12.5%.
Resources and facilities contribute 5%, while clubs and activities and sports each contribute 2.5%. Several categories combine statistical measures with survey responses, so standardized test results influence the evaluation without determining the entire grade.
Administration appears as a separate profile grade but is not listed as a standalone weighted factor in the current overall methodology.
This comparison uses overall letter grades. The order in which districts appear on a webpage does not establish numerical ranking positions.
A useful starting point for families
Jefferson County illustrates how a “three lowest” label can obscure as much as it explains. Here, it encompasses every district in Niche’s county listing, including the one receiving its highest overall grade.
These evaluations represent one organization’s assessment. A relatively low county grade does not, by itself, establish poor statewide performance, explain the causes of academic results or describe every student’s experience.
Enrollment, demographics, program structure and individual school offerings deserve attention alongside the letters.
Families can use the results to ask concrete questions: How quickly do struggling students receive help? Which advanced courses are available? How do remote learners access support? What happens when a student begins falling behind?
The useful part of a report card is what you do after reading it.
