Yuma Middle School

Yuma Middle School is a rural public school in Yuma, Colorado, serving 223 students in grades 5–8 as part of the Yuma 1 School District. Compared to the much smaller Lone Star Middle School about 17 miles away, Yuma serves more than ten times as many students and a higher-need population (62.8% free/reduced lunch vs. 47.4%), yet maintains a similar low student-teacher ratio of 13.1 to 1. Yuma also reports far more performance data, making its results more reliable and meaningful for parents.

Academically, English Language Arts is a relative bright spot, with 42.7% of students proficient in 2025–2026, up from 35.8% the year before and close to the state average of 44.7%. However, this improvement hides a sharp grade-level problem: 5th and 6th grade reading scores exceed state averages, but 7th grade ELA proficiency plunges to 26.6%—20 points below the state. Math is a more consistent concern, declining from 28.1% proficiency in 2022–2023 to 23.5% in 2025–2026, which is nearly 14 points below the state and below the district average. Science scores swing widely from year to year, with 8th grade sometimes beating the state but 5th grade often lagging.

One of the most urgent warnings is chronic absenteeism, which nearly doubled from 17.2% in 2023–2024 to 34.1% in 2024–2025—now well above both the district and state. Subgroup data shows room for improvement: Hispanic students ranked at the 21st percentile statewide in 2025–2026, down from the 54th percentile a few years earlier, while the school overall sits at the 41st percentile (a 2-star rating). Still, the dropout rate is very low (0.8%), and Yuma Middle ranks above its district’s overall 29th percentile, suggesting it is one of the stronger schools in the area. Overall, this is a lower-middle-tier school with genuine strengths in reading, a persistent math challenge, and an attendance issue that deserves immediate attention.