Summary:
Zip code 80210 in Denver, Colorado is home to a single high school: South High School, a large public institution serving grades 9 through 12 with an enrollment of 1,950 students. The school operates within School District No. 1, a district that ranks in the 38th percentile statewide with a 2-star rating, which provides important context for understanding just how much South High stands out from its peers.
South High School is a consistently strong performer, earning a 4-star rating from SchoolDigger for three consecutive years and ranking in the 72nd to 77th percentile among all Colorado high schools. With a graduation rate of 92.7% — well above both the district's 81.9% and the state's 85.6% — and a dropout rate of just 1.7%, the school clearly keeps students on track. Academically, it significantly outperforms its district in every tested subject. On the 11th-grade SAT, 75% of students were proficient in Reading & Writing and 53% were proficient in Mathematics, surpassing state averages by 15 and 21 percentage points respectively. Results on the PSAT9 and PSAT10 follow the same pattern, with math proficiency running roughly 12 to 17 points above state levels.
The most striking finding is the disconnect between South High's strong academic results and its challenges. While 38.56% of students receive free or reduced lunch and the chronic absenteeism rate of 30.3% exceeds the state average of 28.4%, the school still achieves top-quartile rankings and strong college readiness. Science is the one relative weak spot — 31.7% proficiency on CMAS Science is above the state's 24.8% but far below the school's own literacy and math scores. Ranking records show remarkable stability, with the school placing in the 72nd, 77th, and 73rd percentiles over the past three years. Overall, South High School delivers excellent outcomes in a challenging district context, with its main opportunities for improvement being science achievement and chronic absenteeism.
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