Best Public Schools in Craig, AK

Craig, Alaska, is a small Southeast Alaska community served by the Craig City School District, which operates four schools — PACE Correspondence (K–12), Craig Elementary (PK–5), Craig Middle School (6–8), and Craig High School (9–12) — enrolling about 615 students. The most important thing to understand is that the district is really two stories: PACE Correspondence, an alternative K–12 correspondence program, enrolls 414 students (about two-thirds of the district), while the three traditional campus schools serve just 201 students combined. Because PACE dominates enrollment, district-level statistics can easily mislead families learning about the traditional campuses.

Among the traditional schools, results are encouraging but uneven. Craig High School posts a strong 90% graduation rate, beats the state average in 10th-grade science, and ranks near the middle of Alaska high schools (53rd percentile, 3 stars). Craig Elementary exceeds state averages in math (51% vs. 32%) and science (62% vs. 38%), though its state rank fell from the 77th percentile in 2023–2024 to the 44th percentile in 2025–2026 — a reminder that rankings for tiny schools can swing widely. The weak spot is Craig Middle School, where math proficiency is just 24% — less than half the 51% seen at Craig Elementary and well below the state's 32%. PACE Correspondence is a different model entirely: a 75:1 student-teacher ratio, the lowest per-student spending, and a 33% graduation rate, though it serves an alternative and largely remote student population.

Parents should focus on school-level rather than district-level data. The district's 52.5% graduation rate is pulled down entirely by PACE, hiding the fact that Craig High School graduates 90% of its students. District-wide proficiency figures likewise mask Craig Elementary's strengths and Craig Middle School's math struggles. A broad proficiency decline from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026 is worth monitoring, but with only 50–80 students in each traditional school, single-year swings can be misleading. Some reported data is also imperfect — Craig Elementary's free/reduced lunch rate exceeds 100% (clearly an error), and spending figures date back to 2018–2019. Overall, Craig's traditional schools compare reasonably well with state averages, and the district is best understood school by school.