5259 16th Ave SW
Seattle, WA 98106

Deciding to go to Pathfinder K-8 was one of the best choices I've made as a parent. We bought our house specifically so that we'd be in the attendance area for Fairmount Park and the geozone for Pathfinder, and every day I'm glad we did. Everyone at this school has chosen to come here, which means that the parent community is unmatched. The teachers are invested and highly engaged. No space does inclusivity perfectly, but we've personally had a great experience with accommodations and teamwork with admin. Our kids learn to be accepting of all kinds of abilities. The real clincher here is that the on-site before-and-after-school care "Blazing Trails" is the best run & most affordable school-age kid care in the city. We're lucky that West Seattle has so many good schools, and I'm sure they're all great, but in my opinion, this one is the best.

My daughter is in Kindergarten here. Her teacher speaks to all of the parents every morning and has great communication with the families. I always know how my daughter is doing and how her day went. She loves classes like garden science and is learning her numbers and letters quickly. There is no shortage of parent volunteers for this class. We feel really fortunate to be in this school district and in Mrs. Smith’s Kindergarten class at Lafayette.

Madison just cancelled its honors classes from 2020-21 onward (same as all the other middle schools in Seattle.) HCC still exists for the few who can test into it, but everyone else will be stuck with dumbed down general ed.

This school is a majority white school with terrible SpecialED support. The school also suffers with nonstop vaping, smoking, and drugs being done in the bathrooms with no apparent efforts to stop it from happening (I can't go to the bathroom due to how hazy it is in there and how strong the smell of vape is in the bathrooms, every one is like this). Besides that, I have been miserable due to the majority of classes using older, outdated "Chair tables" I'm unsure if that's the name or not. I would highly advise against attending this school, or having your child go here. I'd also like to say there are maybe 20 mixed race students in the school including myself.

This school has new leadership, and we've had a great experience. As an option school, most families are involved and interested in their child's education. It's helped round out the school with the after-school enrichment and other opportunities outside of just core academics that we've seen a number of families put time and effort into. If anything we wish SPS would fund these schools, and all their schools better. As our kids have gotten older we've seen benefits to the project-based work they do, and appreciate the number of long-time teachers.