Summary:
Zip code 80601 in Brighton, Colorado, contains four high schools within School District 27J, a district ranked 81 out of 115 in the state with a 2-star rating. The schools include traditional campuses Brighton High School and Eagle Ridge Academy, plus alternative programs 27J Online Academy and Innovations & Options serving grades 6-12. Combined enrollment is roughly 2,897 students, with Brighton High School the largest at 1,733.
Eagle Ridge Academy is the clear academic leader, holding the highest ranking (44th percentile), the best chronic absenteeism rate at 17.1%, the lowest poverty rate at 40.64% free/reduced lunch, and the highest graduation rate at 97.2%. It matches or exceeds state averages in SAT reading/writing, science, and PSAT9 reading/writing. Brighton High School is a graduation success story with a 93.1% graduation rate and 0.7% dropout rate, but academics lag sharply: only 42% proficient in SAT reading/writing and 13% in math versus state averages of 60% and 32%. Brighton also struggles with 37.7% chronic absenteeism and a 55.68% poverty rate.
The alternative schools face the steepest challenges. 27J Online Academy has a 66.9% graduation rate, 6.9% dropout rate, and 70.7% chronic absenteeism, while Innovations & Options posts the lowest graduation rate (64.4%) and highest dropout rate (9.1%). Math proficiency is weak across every school, even the top performer. Notably, the school with the lowest student-teacher ratio (Innovations & Options at 13.7) has the worst outcomes, showing that class size alone does not drive success. The clearest opportunity for improvement across the zip code is reducing chronic absenteeism, which closely tracks the poor graduation and dropout outcomes in the alternative schools.
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