Summary:
ZIP code 89521, in the south Reno area, is home to two high schools serving grades 9–12: Damonte Ranch High School, a large neighborhood school with 1,738 students in Washoe County, and Nevada Connections Academy, a charter school with 1,054 students in State Sponsored Charter Schools.
Academically, the two schools look quite different. Damonte Ranch generally meets or beats district and state proficiency: ACT Math 34% (district 26.9%, state 22.6%), ACT English 53.3%, and EOC Science 28.1%. Nevada Connections trails on the same measures — ACT English 33.6% against the state's 50.8%, and ACT Math known only to be under 5%, far below the state's 22.6%. Graduation rates are close and both slightly below the state: 83.8% at Damonte Ranch and 82.2% at Nevada Connections, compared with 85.4% statewide. Damonte Ranch's 9th- and 10th-grade EOC Science results are suppressed, so those cannot be compared.
Attendance and ratings show a different pattern. Chronic absenteeism is 37.7% at Damonte Ranch — above district (27.5%) and state (25.5%) levels — but just 13.0% at Nevada Connections, below both. Nevada Connections' sponsoring district is rated 2/12 with 5 stars, yet the school itself ranks 73/105 with 2 stars, up from 1 star in prior years; Damonte Ranch ranks 45/105 with 3 stars and has held that rating consistently. Nevada Connections also enrolls more students from low-income families (46.87% free/reduced lunch vs 31.59%), has a higher student-teacher ratio (31.4 vs 23.6), and spends slightly less per student ($9,798 vs $10,428). These contextual differences are worth noting, though the data do not show cause and effect.
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