Summary:
ZIP code 44503 covers downtown Youngstown, Ohio, and contains just two schools — both high schools, both part of the Youngstown City district, and both located on Wood Street. Youngstown Rayen Early College High School serves grades 9–12 with 296 students, while Choffin Career Center serves grades 11–12 with only 29. There are no elementary or middle schools in this ZIP. The district overall ranks near the bottom of Ohio (8th percentile, 0 stars), which makes the contrast between the district's profile and Rayen's individual results the central story in this data set.
Rayen is the clear standout: it ranks in the 71st percentile of Ohio high schools and holds 4 stars in each of the last three reported years. Its 2025–2026 graduation rate is 98.4% against 90.7% for the district, and its chronic absenteeism rate is 18.5% against 56.7% district-wide — less than one-third of the district figure. On Ohio State Tests, Rayen beats both its district and the state in all five tested subjects, including 89.2% proficiency in American Government and 65.8% in Geometry. Its five-subject average is 73.4%, versus 34.9% for the district and 61.2% for the state. Algebra I is the one place its margin over the state is thin, though it posted the largest year-over-year gain of any subject.
Choffin cannot be compared on achievement, because no test scores, graduation rate, or absenteeism figures are reported for it. Those blanks mean unknown, not failing, and some may be suppressed for privacy given the school's small size. What stands out is its staffing profile: a student–teacher ratio of 2.0 against Rayen's 19.7 — a difference likely shaped by a career-center model rather than by tiny classes. Both schools have blank free/reduced-lunch fields, so there is no poverty context, and the single spending figure ($14,712 per student, 2018–2019) is too dated to support conclusions. Read Rayen as a genuinely strong performer and Choffin as largely unmeasured.
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