The top reported proficiency rate is 63% in English language arts. The lowest is 45% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Sleeping Giant School
Sleeping Giant School is the newest campus in the Steamboat Springs School District No. Re 2, having opened its doors in August 2023 as a pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade regular public school. It is not a charter or magnet school, and along with the high school, serves as a district facility that received funding from a voter-approved bond measure aimed at expanding capacity and improving aging infrastructure across the district. For families, this is a brand-new building, one that was designed to relieve overcrowding at other schools and to give the district a second middle-school option for the growing student population.
The school’s academic performance on Colorado’s state assessments places it in a strong position for a relatively new school. In English language arts, a solid majority of students in grades three through eight met or exceeded proficiency standards. In math, that share was lower, with just under half of students reaching the proficient benchmark. Across all tested subjects and grades, the school’s overall proficiency index landed above the midpoint compared with other schools in Routt County. Participation rates on the tests were high, which gives confidence that the results reflect the student body. Science results for fifth and eighth graders were reported with average scale scores, but the proficiency figures themselves were suppressed, so a parent cannot get a full picture of science performance from that data alone.
The student body of roughly a few hundred is predominantly white, with a Hispanic population representing about a fifth of enrollment. A small number of students are American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black, or of two or more races. Just over a quarter of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a share that is moderate for a resort-community school and points to a student population that is not uniformly affluent despite the area’s high housing costs. Data on students with disabilities and English learners were not available, so a parent would want to ask the school directly about how those populations are served.
Steamboat Springs itself is a resort town in northwestern Colorado where the economy is built around outdoor recreation, ranching, and mining. The Steamboat Ski Resort on Mount Werner anchors the tourism industry, and the town also hosts Colorado Mountain College, UCHealth Yampa Valley Medical Center, and municipal government as major employers. The town has a walkable downtown core along Lincoln Avenue with shops, restaurants, and the Yampa River Core Trail, a paved path that runs through downtown alongside the river. Howelsen Hill, the oldest continuously operating ski area in North America, sits in town and hosts ski jumping and the Winter Carnival. Civic anchors include the Bud Werner Memorial Library, Old Town Hot Springs, and the Tread of Pioneers Museum. On the housing front, the area is under severe pressure. Home values are well above state and national benchmarks, and rents have climbed substantially. A plan to build a large number of affordable housing units for workers was blocked by voters, so the mismatch between jobs and housing remains acute. Families moving to the area for the school should expect a tight and expensive housing market.
Sleeping Giant serves grades PK through eight, and because it does not serve high school grades, it has no graduation rate to report. That is a straightforward function of the grade band, not a gap in performance. The school’s proficiency in English language arts is a clear strength, while the math figure gives a parent a reasonable question to explore. Given that the school is brand new, it is still building its track record. A family drawn to a newly built, PK-through-middle-school campus in a resort community with high-participation testing and strong English scores will find that here, balanced against housing costs that are among the highest in the state.
See more original research from School Decision →