Thornton Creek Elementary School

7712 40th Avenue Northeast

School District

Seattle Public Schools
Grade

PK, K-5
Teacher/Student Ratio

1:16
Type

public

GreatSchools Rating

The school rating calculation is based on four ratings: the Student Progress Rating or Academic Progress Rating, College Readiness Rating, Equity Rating, and Test Score Rating each designed to show different facets of school success. Learn more about GreatSchools Ratings

Reviews

Submitted by parent on June 29, 2023

Absolutely love the school environment. Teachers are very engaging with kids and provide great support to families. School has good focus on socioemotional development aspect of kids.My son has made good friends and enjoy going to school everyday.
Submitted by parent on June 29, 2023

We have been so happy at this school! I've had two kids in the school so far and have found the teachers in particular to be phenomenal. They are able to hold space for kids to go through their emotions so they can approach learning from a calm, centered place. My two kids are very different, and they've both thrived and have been welcomed socially. I also credit the approach the school uses during the First Six Weeks where classrooms intentionally spend time together to thoughtfully come up with how the classroom should run and how everyone should treat one another. I think it creates a lot of buy-in and helps everyone do their best. I also love that students that spend a chunk of time in the special ed classrooms also come into the general education classrooms regularly to build relationships with all students and are included in birthday parties, etc. Plus the expeditions have been incredible!!! It is stunning to watch these kids legitimately become experts in something. Both of my daughters are far better birders than I've ever been, for a very easy example. And my daughter has been able to identify individual orcas in the pod they'd studied by sight while watching a documentary!Plus the looping classrooms!! Having the same teacher and same cohort from 2nd-3rd and then from 4th-5th takes the growth potential up about twelve notches.
Submitted by parent on June 16, 2023

My kids absolutely adore Thornton Creek elementary and have found it to be an incredibly welcoming and inclusive school. The social emotional learning is great and the teachers really care about nurturing a love of learning. My sons are thriving there and i wouldn't want them anywhere else within the Seattle Public Schools system as they are not only learning about literacy and math but also to be kind human beings.SPS in general has really lowered the bar in recent years by taking away advanced learning opportunities for all and underfunding schools so the only reason I keep my kids in it is due to the extraordinary expeditionary learning opportunities offered at Thornton Creek The facilities are also new which is great given how many outdated schools there are in the district.I wish the school could provide more challenging math but that's an SPS issue not a Thornton Creek one so the same inability to learn advanced math would be present at any school within the district.I'd highly recommend the school to anyone looking for an innovative learning environment that breeds curiosity, empathy, and a love of learning .
Submitted by parent on October 14, 2022

I have two kids at Thornton Creek and one who has recently graduated and is in Middle School. I was worried about my son's transition to middle school but am happy to say it has been so smooth. This has much to do with his time at Thornton Creek. My son learned how to work independently and in groups, how to get along with others, stand up for himself and take ownership of his work. My younger kids are thriving at TC. They have many opportunities to learn and grow, have supportive teachers who care deeply about creating safe and inspiring environments. My kids love going to school and constantly talk about their expeditions. They feel more connected to the natural world because of their expeditions on gardening, outdoor play, beavers, salmon and have also learned about engineering and government. TC creates a caring atmosphere that puts kids first. I highly recommend checking out this school for yourself and seeing if it's the right fit for your family.
Submitted by parent on October 08, 2022

This school is an unsafe place for Black and Brown folk. The staff has been there forever and is rejects any feedback about their white-perspective curriculum. The principal suppresses minority voices to so the teachers don't feel uncomfortable. Wealthy parents donate big cash for the school but demand it be spent on the things they want their own child to experience. Seattle Public School district has settled a harassment/bullying lawsuit based on behavior that still thrives amongst school staff and complicit parents. Enrollment is down30% in the last 3 years. Families of color leave even in the middle of the school year. Yet administrators and teacher scratch their heads and think the problem is "disruptive parents" - code for Black and Brown voices.If you want to keep your head down and write multiple checks a year to support public education, this is a good school as long as your kid doesn't need has a learning difference or won't be singled out as different.
Submitted by parent on November 13, 2021

Horrible experience. They need to work on their race related issues at every level. If you are visible minority it is probably not the right place for your children. I hope they have change their attitude. But they needed a big cultural shift to be more inclusive. We were not aware of the ongoing discrimination case when we started there. Our children faced really hard bullying and staff wouldn't want to touch the bully for some reason. They try to pin the blame on other children who are either belong to visible minority or had disability. While I myself observed physical bullying there but staff was dismissive. Their attitude towards me during meetings was also quite demeaning. They destroyed my children's self esteem. During on miserable year we were there they didn't provide much needed support, didn't follow IEP, My children learnt nothing there other than that they were not while and that was a bad thing.
Submitted by parent on November 08, 2021

While many families love Thornton Creek, my kids did not thrive there. Social emotional learning and community building are really important skills and ideas to weave into schools, but when those things take priority over basic academics a lot of kids don't thrive. My kids were never appropriately challenged at Thornton Creek even after talking to multiple teachers about how they and we could support the needs of my kids. One of my children also seemed to be struggling but it wasn't until their final year there that teacher finally suggested that maybe they were struggling with anxiety. After going through the process of having them evaluated and a 504 plan put in place, I talked to many many parents that had the same experience. Their neurodiverse children were welcomed warmly but staff were very slow to actually help identify kids who were struggling so that proper supports and legally required accommodations could be put in place. On top of all of that, over the past few years after moving into a much larger building, the school has gone through INTENSE growing pains, a major law suit that found staff to have discriminated against a student in a racially motivated manner, and there have been 5 principals in 5 years. There is great potential at TC and there are many staff and families there that care deeply about the school and the children there, but it's not the perfect little happy community that it's often sold as. Enter with caution.
Submitted by parent on August 27, 2014

I highly recommend this school to parents who want their kids to learn the value and joys of contributing to their community (in the 3 yrs my older child has been at TC she has released salmon that her class raise, pulled invasive plants along local trails, and discuss kid issues such as gossiping and bullying with each other), and a love of learning (their field trips and outings are tied to their academic requirements). They also learn the academics that come with a great elementary education. Here are comments from my two kids at Thornton Creek. 4th grader: "I love all the field trips and the fun things we do and learn. I think Thornton Creek has many great programs and they make math, reading, and writing fun. I learned about tide pools and phytoplankton in 1st grade. In 2nd grade I learned about salmon and their lifecycle. In 3rd grade I learned about Native Americans in the Northwest Coast. 3rd was my favorite year so far. This year I will be in 4th grade. From the experience I've had from other grades, I feel excited about starting fourth grade." 1st Grader: "I liked kindergarten, especially my teacher. She made everything fun. I learned how to write and tell stories."
Submitted by parent on August 22, 2014

We just finished our first year of K at Thornton Creek. I love the hands on learning approach at this school and I witnessed a phenomenal play studied, written and created by one 5th grade class whose expedition was the Human Body (I wish they had performed for my college physiology class - I would have had a better grasp of macrophages, T cells, and more!) One first grade class expedition had to do with Playgrounds and each student designed 3-D models of their ideal playground (after considering weather, balls&slides science kits and more) and they presented their model and read a paragraph to a team of architects and the principal! If only all students could learn in such a setting! One negative is that each student at TC has a different series of expeditions and not all of them are nearly as phenomenal as the ones I just mentioned. The school is definitely overcrowded now, as SPS is gearing up to double the size in 2016, when a new building is opened. This may change the overall flavor of the school and in the meantime has recess and lunchtime and school assemblies bursting at the seams. (They no longer pay to be officially an "expeditionary learning school", BTW)