Springfield School District No. Re-4

Springfield School District No. Re-4 serves 284 students in a small, rural Colorado community through just two schools: Springfield Elementary School (grades PK–5) and Springfield Junior/Senior High School (grades 6–12), both located on the same campus.

For parents comparing the two schools, the elementary school is the clear academic leader. Springfield Elementary outperforms its own district and the state in math, with 45.8% of students proficient compared to 37.3% statewide. Its ELA proficiency of 37.5% also outpaces the district’s 32.6%, though it falls short of the 44.7% state level. By contrast, Springfield Junior/Senior High School scores much lower in both subjects, with just 26.8% proficient in ELA and 24.4% in math. The high school does show an occasional bright spot—its 9th-grade PSAT reading/writing scores reached 71% proficiency one year, beating the state average, but dropped to 50% the next year. With only 128 students in the entire secondary school, these sharp year-to-year swings are common and should not be read as stable trends.

The biggest concerns for families are chronic absenteeism and economic disadvantage. Roughly 73% of elementary students and 59% of high school students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and both schools have absenteeism rates above the state average—35.7% at the high school and 29.3% at the elementary school versus 28.4% statewide. On a positive note, class sizes are very small, with student–teacher ratios under 10:1, and the high school’s 82.4% graduation rate is not far off the state’s 85.6%, with a dropout rate slightly better than the state average. While the district ranks near the bottom statewide, the elementary school’s math success proves that pockets of strong learning exist, even in a high-poverty, rural setting.