Best Public Schools in Parachute, CO

Parachute, Colorado is home to 4 public schools in the Grand Valley School District No. 16, serving roughly 1,200 students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in a small, rural western Colorado community.

Every school in Parachute serves a majority low-income student population, with free and reduced lunch rates between 60.75% and 68.97%. Bea Underwood Elementary School, Grand Valley High School, Grand Valley Center for Family Learning, and Grand Valley Middle School form a complete pipeline, with the elementary school serving grades 2-5, the middle school grades 6-8, and the high school grades 9-12. The most striking issue across the district is math: proficiency is just 5% at Bea Underwood, 5.5% at the middle school, and only 13-18% on SAT/PSAT math at the high school, compared to state averages of 32-40%. Reading and writing tell a different story at the secondary level—Grand Valley High School posts a 61% SAT Reading/Writing proficiency rate, matching the state average, while its elementary and middle school ELA scores trail badly at 15.8% and 12.5% versus 44.7% statewide.

Attendance is a mixed picture. Bea Underwood Elementary School has the city's lowest chronic absenteeism at 21.2%, better than the state average of 28.4%, while Grand Valley High School stands out as the worst at 29.4%. District rankings are slipping, with the high school falling from the 35th to 22nd percentile since 2023-24 and the middle school dropping from the 13th to 2nd percentile over the same period. The district also lacks alternative schools, meaning at-risk students must be served within these traditional settings. With a graduation rate of 80.2% versus 85.6% statewide, and high poverty across all campuses, the Grand Valley School District No. 16 faces systemic challenges—particularly in math—that will require coordinated intervention from the early learning center through high school.