Summary:
West End School District No. Re-2 contains exactly one high school, Nucla High School, serving 60 students in grades 9 through 12 in the small rural town of Nucla, Colorado. Because West End School District No. Re-2 has only this single high school, all district-level high school metrics are identical to the school's own numbers. The school operates with a very low student-teacher ratio of 8.2 to 1, and 58.33 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, reflecting the elevated socioeconomic needs of the community.
Nucla High School demonstrates notable strengths alongside significant challenges. The 10th grade reading and writing proficiency rate of 72 percent beats the state average of 64 percent, and the graduation rate of 87.5 percent edges out the state's 85.6 percent. In contrast, 11th grade math and science proficiency both sit at just 19 percent, far below the state's 32 percent and 24.8 percent, respectively, while 9th grade reading proficiency trails the state average by eight points. The school's state ranking fell to the 28th percentile with a one-star rating in 2025-2026, a decline from the 41st percentile and two stars earned in 2023-2024.
The most pressing concern is chronic absenteeism, which impacts 57.8 percent of students—more than double the state's 28.4 percent. The dropout rate of 4.5 percent is also nearly three times the state's 1.6 percent. With only 60 students, individual outcomes have an outsized effect on statistics, which helps explain the year-to-year volatility in rankings. Overall, parents should view Nucla High School as a small rural school with genuine strengths in literacy and graduation outcomes, but with serious obstacles around attendance, dropout prevention, and STEM achievement that families will want to keep in mind.
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