Admin December 17, 2024
How the school-choice process works in Poudre School District
How school choice works in Poudre School District
Two Poudre School District Elementary schools and three middle schools were ranked among the top 20 in Colorado in U.S. News and World Report’s annual rankings for 2025. Four of the five use Core Knowledge curriculum.
Zach Elementary, a neighborhood school in southeast Fort Collins, was ranked No. 5 among public elementary schools in Colorado by U.S. News and World Report, while Traut, a choice-only school in southeast Fort Collins with no defined attendance area, was rated No. 12.
The rankings, which were released Nov. 14, are only for public schools and are based on the percentage of students rated proficient or above in mathematics and reading/language arts in state assessment tests. The data used for the 2025 rankings is based on the U.S. Department of Education’s Common Core of Data for the 2022-23 school year, according to methodology published with the annual rankings.
Among middle schools, Compass Community Collaborative School was ranked No. 7, Liberty Common School was No. 13, and Kinard No. 20. Compass Community Collaborative and Liberty Common are both charter schools authorized through Poudre School District with middle school students attending classes in the same building as their high school students. Kinard Middle School, like Traut Elementary, is an all-choice school in southeast Fort Collins with no defined attendance area open to all students in PSD.
Zach and Traut elementaries and Liberty Common and Kinard middle schools all use Core Knowledge curriculum, while Compass Community Collaborative School uses a competency-based educational model.
The only other school in the area to make the top 50 in the U.S. News and World Report elementary and middle school rankings for 2025 was Windsor Charter Academy, a Core Knowledge charter school authorized by the Windsor-Severance School District that was ranked No. 42.
The publication’s most recent high school rankings were released in April of 2024, with three PSD schools ranked among Colorado’s top 50, and won’t be updated again with new data until August 2025, it reported. Liberty Common School was No. 3 in the April rankings of Colorado high schools, while Fossil Ridge was No. 44 and Ridgeview Classical Schools was No. 45. Fossil Ridge is a comprehensive high school in southeast Fort Collins, while Ridgeview Classical is a K-12 charter school that, like Liberty Common, uses Core Knowledge curriculum.
Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, x.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.
