Summary:
There is one middle school in zip code 81230: Gunnison Middle School, which serves grades 6 through 8 and enrolls 314 students in the Gunnison area. The school is part of the Gunnison Watershed School District Re1J, a highly rated 4-star district ranked 31st out of 115 districts in Colorado. However, the school itself holds a 2-star rating and has ranked in the lower half of Colorado middle schools, though it has shown steady improvement, moving from the 34th to the 44th percentile over the past three reporting periods.
The most pressing concern at Gunnison Middle School is chronic absenteeism: 37.5% of students are chronically absent, well above the district's 25.6% and the state's 28.4%. Academically, the school trails the state in English Language Arts (31.7% proficient vs. 44.7%), math (28.6% vs. 37.3%), and science (31.2% vs. 35.4%). It also lags its own district in ELA and math, although it slightly outperforms the district in 8th-grade science. A favorable student-teacher ratio of 12.8:1 suggests smaller class sizes, but this has not translated into higher test scores, likely due to the high absenteeism and other factors.
Math proficiency at Gunnison Middle School declines sharply across grade levels: 6th graders exceed the state average (37.2% vs. 32.7%), but 8th graders fall far behind (21.9% vs. 37.8%). ELA proficiency dropped significantly by 9.1 points in one year, from 40.8% to 31.7%, while math improved by 8.3 points. The school's ranking has improved from the 34th to 44th percentile over three years, but it remains well below state averages. For parents, the key takeaways are that attendance is a major issue, 8th-grade math requires urgent support, and recent ELA declines are a serious concern even as the school's overall ranking trends upward.
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