Original Research by School Decision on Edison Junior-senior High School
Edison Junior-Senior High School serves grades six through twelve in the far eastern reaches of El Paso County, in the rural, unincorporated community of Yoder. The school is part of the Edison Joint District, a very small district that has three schools and minimal publicly reported change in recent years. The community itself is sparsely settled on the high plains, roughly an hour’s drive east of Colorado Springs, with a history tied to Amish Mennonite homesteading and a landscape of ranches and farms rather than any town center. There is no walkable downtown; the school campus and the post office are the primary civic anchors in this low-density setting.
The enrollment at Edison is very small, which shapes nearly every aspect of the experience. Students span a wide grade range, from middle school through high school, all in one building. The student body is overwhelmingly white, with a small Hispanic share. More than half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating that a substantial share of families have lower household incomes. No data on students with disabilities or English learners was available.
State testing data for math, English language arts, and science was suppressed in the most recent reporting year due to the very small number of students in each tested grade. While participation rates were reported as high for the elementary and middle school assessments, the small cohort sizes mean the state withholds proficiency results to protect student privacy. This makes it impossible to assess academic performance from the standard testing metrics, and leaves a parent unable to compare Edison’s proficiency rates against those of larger schools or districts in El Paso County. A parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand how student learning is measured and reported locally.
The school offers grades six through twelve, meaning students can remain in the same building for seven formative years. This continuity, along with the school’s small size, likely fosters close relationships between students and staff. The rural setting means that for most families, transportation and the commute are part of daily life; Yoder sits on rural roads with no public transit, and the nearest towns of any size are a substantial drive away.
Housing and growth context in Yoder shows a community that has seen minimal development over the decades. The population of the ZIP code area remains modest, and the unincorporated town itself has no new housing developments or commercial growth initiatives publicly identified. The housing stock is likely dominated by single-family homes on large lots in an agricultural area. For a family considering a move to this area, the school is the central institution, and the academic expectations, course offerings, and extracurricular programs are best evaluated through direct inquiry, as the public data provides little more than the school's identity and enrollment profile.
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