Best High Schools in Zip Code 99801

In zip code 99801 in Juneau, Alaska, there are three high schools serving grades 9–12 (plus one youth-center program spanning grades 5–12), all within the Juneau Borough School District. The schools differ dramatically in size and mission: Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kale enrolls 1,018 students (92% of the area’s high school population), while Yaakoosge Daakahidi Alternative High School serves 80 students and Johnson Youth Center serves just 10.

Juneau-Douglas is the clear flagship, with a 96% graduation rate well above the district’s 84.6% and a very low poverty rate (13.56% free/reduced lunch). Yet its test proficiency is alarming: only 28.9% of students are proficient in ELA and just 16.74% in math—less than half the state’s 32.2% math proficiency. That mismatch suggests many students graduate without strong academic skills. By contrast, Yaakoosge Daakahidi serves a far higher-need population (55% free/reduced lunch), spends $26,768 per student (57% more than Juneau-Douglas), and has a lower student-teacher ratio, but its graduation rate is just 65.2%. Johnson Youth Center is a specialized juvenile-justice setting with 10 students and a 66.6% graduation rate; its small class structure (5.5:1) makes it fundamentally different from a traditional high school.

The most important takeaway is that Juneau-Douglas’s high graduation rate coexists with persistently weak math performance, which has likely driven its state ranking from the 54th percentile (3 stars) in 2023–2024 down to the 30th–32nd percentile (2 stars) in the last two years. Meanwhile, the alternative and youth-center schools lack recent test-score rankings due to their small, specialized populations. Parents should note that comparing these three schools directly is misleading—the data clearly show one comprehensive high school, one high-need alternative program, and one secure youth center serving very different students within the same district.