Summary:
Zip code 80720 is served by a single high school, Akron High School, a small rural school in Akron, Colorado, serving grades 9 through 12 with an enrollment of 110 students. The school is part of the Akron School District No. R-1, which ranks 74th out of 115 Colorado districts. Because Akron High School is the only comprehensive high school in the district, school and district test scores are identical, making this a focused look at one community's educational landscape.
Akron High School shows a mix of clear strengths and serious challenges. The school's chronic absenteeism rate of 15.0% is far better than the state average of 28.4%, and its graduation rate of 88.5% tops the state's 85.6%. Reading and writing skills are a genuine highlight, particularly in 10th grade, where 70% of students scored proficient on the PSAT10 Reading & Writing exam in 2025-2026, compared to 65% statewide. However, mathematics proficiency lags badly at every grade level. The most striking gap is in 10th-grade math, where only 13% of Akron students scored proficient versus 39% statewide. This creates an enormous 57-point gap between reading and math proficiency within the same grade, far wider than the statewide 26-point gap.
The school's ranking has slipped from 174th in 2023-2024 to 212th in 2025-2026, moving from the middle of the pack to the lower third of Colorado high schools. With only 110 students spread across four grades, each cohort is very small, so year-to-year test score swings—like 9th-grade math jumping from 12% to 32% or 10th-grade math dropping from 29% to 13%—likely reflect differences between groups of students rather than sudden changes in teaching quality. For parents, the picture is encouraging in attendance, literacy, and graduation, but mathematics is clearly the area needing the most attention. Targeted math support, especially in 10th grade, could have an outsized impact on the school's ranking and college readiness in the coming years.
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