Summary:
Zip code 80540 in Lyons, Colorado, contains two public schools serving grades PK–12, both part of the St. Vrain Valley School District No. Re1J, a district ranked 23rd out of 115 in Colorado with a 4-star rating. The two schools—Lyons Elementary School (PK–5, 255 students) and Lyons Middle/Senior High School (6–12, 344 students)—form a seamless K-12 pipeline, allowing students to progress from preschool through graduation within the same two-school feeder pattern.
Lyons Elementary School stands out as one of Colorado's top elementary schools, ranking 20th out of 943 statewide—the 98th percentile—with a 5-star rating. Its test scores are exceptional: 85.6% proficiency in English Language Arts and 74.1% in Math, far outpacing district (51% and 46.9%) and state (44.7% and 37.3%) averages. Lyons Middle/Senior High School also performs strongly, ranking 40th out of 338 Colorado high schools (88th percentile) with a 4-star rating. The high school posts a 97.6% graduation rate, a 0.0% dropout rate, and a striking 64% SAT Math proficiency rate—double the state average of 32%. Its 10th-grade PSAT10 Reading & Writing score of 93% is 28 points above the state.
Both schools benefit from relatively low free/reduced lunch rates (19.6% at the elementary school, 26.2% at the high school) and healthy student-teacher ratios around 14.4:1. Chronic absenteeism, while an area of concern—affecting 18.4% of elementary students and 22.4% of high school students—remains below both district (23.1%) and state (28.4%) averages. Enrollment is small (255 and 344 students), which likely supports individualized attention. With top-tier academic performance across nearly every metric, this small school system represents a notable educational success story in Colorado, though families should be aware that roughly one in five high school students still misses significant instructional time.
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