Best High Schools in Zip Code 81039

Zip code 81039 contains just one high school: Fowler High School, which serves grades 9 through 12 as part of Fowler School District No. R4J in a small rural Colorado community. With only 101 students, Fowler is a very small school, and its 8.5-to-1 student-teacher ratio means students are likely to receive more individual attention than they would at a larger school. Nearly 47 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. The district currently holds a 3-star SchoolDigger rating and ranks 53rd out of 115 Colorado districts.

Fowler High School's graduation rate is a clear strength: 95.8 percent of students graduate, well above the state average of 85.6 percent, and the dropout rate is just 0.9 percent. Academically, the school's performance is mixed. In the most recent test results, 11th-grade science proficiency reached 31.8 percent, exceeding the state's 24.8 percent, and 9th-grade reading and writing proficiency hit 72 percent, above the state's 66 percent. However, math proficiency at the 11th grade was just 17 percent compared to 32 percent statewide, and 10th-grade reading and writing came in at 46 percent versus 65 percent statewide. The school's state ranking has also fluctuated, moving from 190th to 154th and back to 198th over the past three years.

The biggest concern for the school is chronic absenteeism: 36.9 percent of students are chronically absent, well above the state average of 28.4 percent, even as graduation rates remain high. Parents should also be aware that with such a small student body, test scores and rankings can swing considerably from year to year as individual cohorts change. While Fowler shows strong results in areas like graduation, science, and early high school reading and writing, the school faces real challenges in math and in maintaining literacy gains as students move into the upper grades.