Centennial State Education Coverage, Driven by Data
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More than half of Colorado's Native American students attended regularly in 2024-25, but the 45.3% chronic-absence rate worsened faster than any other group's. A handful of districts, led by Douglas County at 23%, point to what's working.
Colorado reported 57,438 kindergartners and 74,923 twelfth graders in 2025–2026. These are enrolled grade counts, rather than graduates or a linked cohort forecast.
Five years after the pandemic, fewer than one in five measurable Colorado districts have chronic absenteeism rates at or below their 2019-20 levels, with most large districts still well above baseline.
Weld RE-4 recorded eleven consecutive annual increases within the original enrollment files checked, while district context underscores the difference between city and school-district boundaries.
A Western Slope district of 4,641 students posted one of Colorado's most dramatic attendance turnarounds, dropping from the state's worst large-district rate to well below average in four years.
Colorado reported 48,485 multiracial students in 2025–2026, up from 34,393 in 2015–2016. The category grew in each checked annual comparison and ranked third by the final count.
Denver Public Schools' student who is currently homeless chronic absenteeism rate hit 76.2% in 2024-25, worsening by 5 points as the district's equity gaps widened across nearly every subgroup.
Six districts reported their lowest enrollment within the original annual files checked. Their individual peak losses differ from a comparison using a common pre-pandemic baseline.
Colorado Springs District 11 saw chronic absenteeism surge 16.6 percentage points in one year, the largest swing among any large Colorado district, with more than half of Black and Hispanic students now chronically absent.
After two years of accelerating improvement, Colorado's chronic absenteeism rate ticked back up to 28.5% in 2025, putting the state's goal of 15% by 2027-28 out of reach.
Colorado reported 4,974 Native American students in 2025–2026, down from 6,424 in 2015–2016. The decline was the steepest percentage change among the seven published racial categories.
Identified charter-school membership rose more slowly in the most recent published year. Incomplete historical classification limits claims about a decade-long plateau.
Most reporting organizations were below their pre-pandemic count in the most recent published year, but being below that count does not mean they never returned.
School District 27J grew from 17,103 to 24,290 students in the original annual-file history. Its growth ranking has a defined comparison population, without a housing or transfer explanation.
Colorado lost 7,400 white kindergartners since 2016 while Hispanic K enrollment barely moved, collapsing a 13,000-student gap to 6,174.
