Summary:
Zip code 80227 is home to three high schools — Bear Creek High School, John F Kennedy High School, and Summit Academy — serving grades 9-12 (Summit Academy also includes grades 6-8) in the Lakewood and Denver area. These schools belong to two very different districts: Jefferson County School District No. R-1, which ranks 24th out of 115 districts in Colorado, and School District No. 1 (Denver Public Schools), which ranks 71st. Student poverty levels vary dramatically, with free/reduced lunch eligibility ranging from 48.7% at Bear Creek to 78.9% at JFK and 92.0% at Summit Academy, and those differences closely track with school outcomes.
Bear Creek is the clear academic leader in the area. It ranks 165th out of 338 high schools in the state, holds a 3-star rating, and graduates 93.0% of its students — above both the district and state averages. Its SAT reading/writing proficiency (61%) and science proficiency (30.1%) exceed state averages. John F Kennedy shows promising momentum, jumping from the 9th to 22nd percentile in state rankings, with SAT reading/writing proficiency rising from 32% to 44% in one year. However, JFK still struggles in math and has higher absenteeism. Summit Academy faces the most severe challenges, with a 56% graduation rate, an 8% dropout rate, and a 69% chronic absenteeism rate, placing it in the bottom 10% of Colorado high schools.
Across all three schools, chronic absenteeism stands out as a systemic problem — even Bear Creek's 40% rate is well above the state average of 28.4%. Math proficiency is another common weakness: Bear Creek's SAT math proficiency is 30% (below the state average), and JFK's is just 17%. Notably, Summit Academy has the smallest class sizes (12.1 student-teacher ratio) yet the lowest outcomes, while Bear Creek has the largest classes and the best performance — a reminder that poverty, attendance, and support services matter more than class size alone.
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