Summary:
Lake County School District No. R-1 serves approximately 931 students across four schools in the Leadville, Colorado area — Lake County High School, Lake County Intermediate School, Lake County Elementary School, and Cloud City High School. The district is ranked 110th out of 115 Colorado districts (bottom 4 percent), but individual schools vary widely in their challenges and strengths.
Lake County High School is the largest school with 389 students in grades 7–12 and presents a notable paradox: its 95.2 percent graduation rate outpaces both the district (85.4 percent) and state (85.6 percent), yet 43.1 percent of students are chronically absent and test scores lag far behind state averages. Across town, Cloud City High School is the most vulnerable — with just 35 students, 80 percent qualifying for free/reduced lunch, a 55 percent graduation rate, and a 4.5 percent dropout rate. Lake County Intermediate School is the district's bright spot: ELA proficiency improved from 18.9 percent to 25.5 percent, and chronic absenteeism is just 13.2 percent. Lake County Elementary School serves grades PK–2 and has no state test scores, but it has the district's lowest chronic absenteeism at 10.2 percent.
District-wide, math is the weakest subject, with proficiency under 20 percent in most grades; the most striking figure is 4th grade math at the intermediate school, where only 6.3 percent of students are proficient versus 39.0 percent statewide. Chronic absenteeism roughly triples from elementary to high school, and about 57.5 percent of students district-wide qualify for free/reduced lunch. Despite the bottom-tier ranking, both tested schools showed year-over-year improvement on SchoolDigger, suggesting the district is moving in a slow but positive direction.
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