Summary:
Zip code 81602 in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, is served by just two public elementary schools — Glenwood Springs Elementary School and Sopris Elementary School — both part of the Roaring Fork School District No. Re-1 and both serving grades PK through 5, with no middle schools, high schools, or alternative schools in the immediate zip code.
Sopris Elementary is the clear standout in this pair. It holds a 3-star rating, ranks 385th out of 943 Colorado elementary schools (59th percentile), and outperforms its neighbor across nearly every academic measure. In English language arts, 44.4% of Sopris students are proficient versus 28.8% at Glenwood Springs; in math, 48.6% versus 26.9%; and in 5th-grade science, 42.4% versus 16.9%. The largest single-grade gap is in 4th-grade math, where Sopris posts 56.9% proficiency compared to just 24.4% at Glenwood Springs. Glenwood Springs, by contrast, holds a 1-star rating and ranks 718th out of 943 schools (24th percentile), with proficiency rates well below district and state averages in every subject.
Likely factors behind the gap include poverty and resources. At Glenwood Springs, 63.7% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, versus 42.6% at Sopris — a 21-point difference that tracks closely with the performance divide. Notably, Glenwood Springs actually has a lower student-teacher ratio (10.9 vs. 14.9), showing that smaller classes alone do not guarantee stronger results. Both schools, however, manage attendance well: chronic absenteeism is 23.1% at Glenwood Springs and 20.0% at Sopris, both below the district's 25.8% and the state's 28.4%. Three-year rankings have also been stable, with Sopris hovering around the 54th–59th percentile and Glenwood Springs around the 22nd–27th percentile, suggesting the pattern of one strong and one struggling elementary school in this zip code is well-established.
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