The top reported proficiency rate is 29% in English language arts. The lowest is 15% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Colorado Springs Charter Academy
Colorado Springs Charter Academy is a kindergarten through eighth-grade public charter school in Colorado Springs, overseen by the State Charter School Institute. It is a regular school operating as a standalone charter, not a magnet or a Title I campus, though the presence or absence of a Title I designation was not noted in the data.
The school is small, serving about three hundred students across nine grades, with enrollment spread fairly evenly from kindergarten through eighth grade. Just over half of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which is a marker that a majority of families have lower household incomes. Racially, the student population is predominantly white, with a substantial share of Hispanic students and smaller shares of students who are Black, multiracial, or other backgrounds. Data on students with disabilities and English learners were not provided, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about how it supports those groups.
On state assessments, which in Colorado are the Colorado Measures of Academic Success, the school’s performance is below the median for districts in El Paso County by a meaningful margin. In math, about one in six students scored at the proficient or advanced level. In English language arts, roughly three out of ten students met that bar. Science results at both fifth and eighth grade were lower still, with fewer than one in six students reaching the state’s proficiency standard. These figures place Colorado Springs Charter Academy in the bottom quartile of districts across the county for overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades. A parent considering this school would want to examine the academic program closely and ask about supports for students who are below grade level, particularly in math and science.
Because the school ends at eighth grade, there is no graduation rate to report, and the data did not include information on chronic absenteeism, discipline, course access, or staffing ratios. That leaves several important dimensions of school quality uncharacterized by the available numbers. The comparison fact-set notes that the school’s proficiency index is the lowest among the sixteen El Paso County districts for which that measure was available.
The neighborhood context is north-central Colorado Springs, along Chelton Road. Colorado Springs itself is a large, auto-oriented city that sprawls across a high-desert plateau at the foot of Pikes Peak. The economy is dominated by military installations and defense contractors, with tourism and aerospace also major forces. Housing values in the school’s immediate zip code area are close to the national average and have been flat to slightly down in the most recent year. Rents are moderate relative to the state as a whole. The broader city has seen steady population growth, and the area remains a destination for families employed by the military, the tech sector, or the service industries.
The district brief for the State Charter School Institute, under which the academy operates, did not identify any recent parent-relevant changes such as curriculum shifts, boundary adjustments, or referendums. That is not unusual for a state-level authorizing body; most operational decisions happen at the school level.
Overall, Colorado Springs Charter Academy is a small K-8 charter with a student body that is majority low-income by the free-lunch measure and a state-testing record that falls below the typical performance among county schools. A family drawn to the small-school environment or the charter model would want to investigate academic supports, especially in math and science, and would benefit from asking the school directly about special education services and English learner programming, since that data was not available. The school does not offer high school grades, so a parent would also need to plan for where their child would attend after eighth grade.
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