Kemper Elementary School

Kemper Elementary School is a K–5 traditional public school in Cortez, Colorado, serving 339 students in the Montezuma-Cortez School District Re-1, where 62.5% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The school has made meaningful progress in recent years: its student-teacher ratio improved from 16.6 to 13.9, and its chronic absenteeism rate dropped from 41.8% to 33.2%—now better than the district average of 39.0%, though still above the state rate of 28.4%.

Academically, Kemper sits in the middle-to-lower tier of Colorado elementary schools. On 2025–2026 CMAS tests, 29.1% of students scored proficient in English Language Arts and 27.2% in Math—both above district averages (26.6% ELA, 21.1% Math) but well below state averages. Kemper clearly outperforms its nearby Cortez neighbor, Mesa Elementary School, with an 11-point gap in math proficiency (27.2% vs. 18.8%) and a 5-point gap in ELA, and it also ranks higher statewide. However, it trails far behind Lewis-Arriola Elementary School, a small school in the same district that posts 75.9% ELA proficiency, and it sits just behind Dolores Elementary School, a comparable school about 10 miles away. One caution flag: 5th-grade science scores have been erratic, swinging from 44.1% proficiency in 2023–2024 down to 12.5% the following year, then partially recovering to 22%.

Opportunities and challenges remain. The improving attendance rate is a positive sign, though one in three students still missing enough school to be considered chronically absent likely dampens academic gains. Statewide subgroup rankings show that some groups of students at Kemper are served much less effectively than others, with notable equity gaps among low-income students in certain years. Overall, Kemper is best understood as a school making cautious, steady progress in a low-performing district—clearly ahead of Mesa, but with room to grow toward the level of Lewis-Arriola.