Overland High School

Overland High School is a large public high school in Aurora, Colorado, serving 2,228 students in grades 9–12 as part of the Cherry Creek School District No. 5. Although the district itself is well regarded—ranking 26th out of 115 districts in Colorado—Overland holds a 1-star rating and sits in the 18th percentile of Colorado high schools. The school's academic profile looks far more like nearby Aurora Joint District No. 28 schools such as Rangeview High School and Gateway High School than like its own district's Cherry Creek High School, located just four miles away.

Test scores illustrate the gap. On the 2025–2026 SAT, only 19% of Overland 11th graders were proficient in math and 42% in reading/writing, compared with 60% and 83%, respectively, at Cherry Creek High School. Overland's scores are roughly on par with Rangeview High School and better than Gateway High School, where only 13% of students were proficient in SAT math. The bigger red flag is attendance: 51.8% of Overland students were chronically absent in 2024–2025, more than double the district rate of 25.3%. The graduation rate of 83.8% trails the district's 91.6% but beats Gateway (65.4%) and Hinkley High School (79.3%).

Overland serves a largely low-income population—64.8% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch—which is much closer to neighboring Aurora schools than to Cherry Creek High School's 20.3%. Math is the weakest subject across all grade levels, with proficiency rates in the teens on SAT and PSAT exams. The school's 3.0% dropout rate is about triple the district rate, and state rankings have fluctuated without sustained improvement. For parents, the most urgent concerns are attendance and math support, though Overland does outperform several nearby alternatives on key measures, making it a middle-tier option in the Aurora area.