Summary
Cheyenne Wells Junior/High School is a very small rural school in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, serving just 84 students in grades 7 through 12. The school stands out for its exceptional attendance and strong literacy skills: only 7.0% of students were chronically absent in 2024–25, compared to 28.4% statewide, and 83% of 9th graders scored proficient in Reading and Writing on the PSAT9, well above the state’s 66%. Recent graduation rates have also topped state averages, including a 100% rate in 2020–21 and 92.3% in 2021–22. These strengths point to a school with a positive, connected culture that families clearly value.
The biggest challenge is mathematics. Only 22% of 9th graders were proficient in math in 2025–26, against a 40% state average, creating an unusually wide 61-point gap between reading and math in the same class. This is a systemic issue, as the school’s district, Cheyenne County School District No. Re-5, shows the same pattern. The school also faces rising economic disadvantage, with 54.8% of students now eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, and the student-teacher ratio has climbed from 9.7 to 15.9 per teacher in just two years. Because the student body is so small, even a few students can cause large swings in test scores, graduation rates, and rankings from year to year.
Historically, Cheyenne Wells Junior/High School once ranked among the top schools in Colorado, placing 6th in 2008–09, before falling sharply in the early 2010s. Today it sits in the middle of the pack statewide, while its district ranks in the upper third of Colorado districts. For parents, the bottom line is a school with a caring, attendance-focused environment and excellent reading instruction, but one that clearly needs to strengthen math support for its students as poverty levels and class sizes rise.
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