Best High Schools in Zip Code 83704

Zip code 83704 contains three high schools—Capital Senior High School, Cardinal Academy, and Ada County Juvenile Center—serving grades 5 through 12 in very different settings, from a large traditional public school to a small independent academy and a juvenile-justice program. Capital Senior High School anchors the area with 1,170 students in grades 9–12 under the Boise Independent District and is the only school with test scores and a state ranking. Cardinal Academy is much smaller, with just 53 students, operated by Cardinal Academy Incorporated, while Ada County Juvenile Center serves only 11 students in grades 5–12 as a specialized facility within the Boise Independent District.

Capital Senior High School is ranked 91st out of 122 Idaho high schools, placing it in the bottom quartile with a 1-star rating, and it underperforms its district and state across every subject. In math, only 23.3% of its students were proficient, compared to 46.9% for the Boise Independent District and 43.1% statewide. The school also posts a 30.8% chronic absenteeism rate, more than double the state rate of 13.8%. By contrast, Cardinal Academy has a favorable 9.2:1 student-teacher ratio but an extraordinary 75.7% chronic absenteeism rate, more than five times the state rate. Both schools report identical 82.5% graduation rates, though this appears to be a placeholder value. Ada County Juvenile Center is not comparable, as it is a juvenile-justice education program with almost no academic outcome data.

The school's state ranking has not meaningfully improved: its percentile rank fell from 31st to 25th between 2023–2024 and 2025–2026, and its star rating dropped from 2 stars to 1 star. The most actionable concerns are chronic absenteeism and below-baseline proficiency at Capital Senior High School, which serves the vast majority of students in the area. Data gaps limit full evaluation—no test scores or free/reduced-price lunch data are available for Cardinal Academy or Ada County Juvenile Center, and the school's spending data is from 2018–2019. Parents comparing schools in 83704 should recognize that these three institutions are not direct peers, and combining them into one "zip code performance" picture would be misleading.