Students in La Plata County schools were truant 2.7% of the time in the 2023-24 school year, the Colorado Department of Education reported. This rate was higher than in the previous school year.
Overall, there were 7,853 students enrolled in La Plata County in the 2023-24 school year, of whom 214 were marked truant.
Statewide, Denver County schools suffered the most truancy issues (6.3%) in the 2023-24 school year. Meanwhile, Dolores County schools successfully recorded the lowest truancy rate in the region (0%).
Students are generally considered chronically truant if they miss 5% or more of the total number of school days in a year without acceptable excuses.
Colorado’s teacher workforce faces persistent shortages and pay challenges. In the 2023–24 school year, nearly 7,000 teaching positions were vacant statewide at some point. Districts managed to fill only about 75% of those openings with fully qualified hires, leaving many to be filled by short-term substitutes, retirees, or emergency credentials for the rest, while 9% remained unfilled for the entire school year.
Colorado’s K–12 enrollment has gradually declined each year since the pandemic, with about 3–4% fewer students in 2024 than the state’s peak enrollment in 2019.
The declines are concentrated in the early grades and certain rural areas, while some metro districts are holding steady or growing. Lower birth rates and pandemic disruptions are driving the trend. Colorado’s public schools are now serving the smallest number of students in a decade, a shift that has implications for funding and planning even as per-pupil resources increase to compensate.
| Schools | No. of Students Enrolled | Chronic Truancy Rates | Attendance Daily Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southwest Colorado eSchool | 51 | 0% | 100% |
| Mountain Middle School | 364 | 0.2% | 99.2% |
| Bayfield Primary School | 249 | 0.5% | 92.3% |
| Animas High School | 268 | 0.8% | 95% |
| Ignacio Elementary School | 288 | 1.3% | 90.7% |
| Bayfield Intermediate School | 297 | 1.4% | 91.2% |
| Escalante Middle School | 511 | 1.5% | 92% |
| Riverview Elementary School | 413 | 1.5% | 93.4% |
| Park Elementary School | 439 | 1.8% | 93.6% |
| The Juniper School | 169 | 1.8% | 92.9% |
| Bayfield Middle School | 285 | 1.9% | 91.2% |
| Animas Valley Elementary School | 183 | 2% | 94.3% |
| Ignacio Middle School | 155 | 2.1% | 88.2% |
| Fort Lewis Mesa Elementary School | 106 | 3% | 93.8% |
| Sunnyside Elementary School | 108 | 3.3% | 93.3% |
| Miller Middle School | 398 | 3.4% | 91.8% |
| District 9-R Shared School | 121 | 3.6% | 96.4% |
| Ignacio High School | 206 | 3.7% | 89.6% |
| Needham Elementary School | 347 | 3.7% | 92.4% |
| Colorado Connections Academy @ Durango | 752 | 3.9% | 95.7% |
| Durango High School | 1,343 | 3.9% | 90.6% |
| Bayfield High School | 423 | 4.2% | 88.8% |
| Florida Mesa Elementary School | 286 | 4.3% | 90.5% |
| Durango Big Picture High School | 91 | 8.5% | 88.1% |
| County | 7,853 | 2.7% | 92.4% |
| State | 866,824 | 3.4% | 91.5% |
Information in this story was obtained from the Colorado Department of Education. The source data can be found here.
