Centennial State Education Coverage, Driven by Data
Education News & Data
Local education reporting from every corner of Colorado, grounded in Colorado Department of Education data.
Among 92 districts with complete six-year coverage and at least 500 students each year, 22 stayed below Colorado's chronic absenteeism rate throughout.
McKinley-Thatcher posted Denver's second-highest screened elementary CMAS math gain from 2022 to 2025 while starting above the state.
Colorado's third-largest district was below the state chronic-absence rate in every year from 2019-20 through 2024-25, showing that large districts do not share one attendance trajectory.
Fort Collins' 29,461-student district cut its chronic absenteeism rate by 3.5 percentage points in 2024-25, the largest improvement among Colorado districts enrolling at least 20,000 students.
The district's chronic absenteeism rate fell from 31.6% to 15.6% between 2022-23 and 2024-25, while three high school grades posted rates below one-third of their statewide comparisons.
Goldrick Elementary posted Denver's largest elementary CMAS math gain in the 2022-to-2025 screen.
Black and Hispanic graduation rates each rose 6.2 points since 2019, narrowing but not closing Colorado's gaps with White students.
Colorado's foster-care graduation rate rose from 36.2% to 44.8% across three reporting years, while a 40.8-point gap remained.
District 49's graduation rate rose 14.7 points by 2025, while incomplete school rows rule out a clean GOAL-free comparison.
Chronic absenteeism rates fell in 102 of 178 matched Colorado district-level rows in 2024-25, while the separately counted statewide rate rose from 27.9% to 28.5%.
Twenty-one Colorado districts recorded their highest chronic absenteeism rates in the six-year 2019-20 to 2024-25 series; 17 enrolled fewer than 1,000 students.
Colorado's 12th graders have a 41.2% chronic absenteeism rate, the highest of any grade and nearly double the elementary average, even as the state posts record-high graduation rates.
Chronic absenteeism among Denver's LEP students jumped to 44.2% in 2024-25, the sharpest increase among any subgroup except students who are currently homeless, as the district pointed to immigration enforcement as a factor.
Denver's chronic absenteeism reversed course in 2024-25 while neighboring Aurora kept improving for a third straight year, narrowing a gap that once seemed structural.
Colorado's chronic absenteeism climbs from 23% in elementary to 41% in 12th grade. K-2 rates improved in 2024-25 while all four high school grades worsened.
