The Bijou School

The Bijou School is a small public high school in Colorado Springs School District No. 11 serving 134 students in grades 9–12 in Colorado Springs, CO. The school serves a high-poverty student body, with 76.9% of students eligible for free/reduced lunch in 2024–2025, one of the highest rates among nearby high schools. Academically, the school is ranked 337 out of 338 Colorado high schools for the 2025–2026 school year, placing it in the 0th percentile with a 0-star rating.

The most alarming metric is chronic absenteeism: 89.4% of Bijou students were chronically absent in 2024–2025, compared to 45.8% districtwide and 28.4% statewide. Nearly 9 out of 10 students are missing enough school to make academic progress extremely difficult. The graduation rate is 56.7%, far below the district's 76.7% and the state's 85.6%, though it has improved from 40.8% a few years ago. The dropout rate of 8.8% is more than triple the district rate. Test scores are also very low, with only 23% of 11th graders proficient in SAT Reading/Writing and just 7.1% proficient in science.

What makes the situation especially notable is that schools in the very same building achieve dramatically better results. Odyssey Early College and Career Options, which shares the Bijou campus, has a 93.5% graduation rate and 43.9% chronic absenteeism, while Achieve Online graduates 70.3% of students. Mitchell High School, located less than two miles away, serves a similarly high-poverty population yet outperforms Bijou on every major metric, including graduation (68.8%), dropout rate (4.7%), and chronic absenteeism (67.9%). This suggests the challenges at Bijou go beyond student demographics. While graduation and dropout rates have shown modest improvement, the attendance crisis remains the school's most urgent priority.