Students in Las Animas County schools were truant 3.1% 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 1,836 students enrolled in Las Animas County in the 2023-24 school year, of whom 57 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Branson School Online | 331 | 0% | 100% |
| Branson School | 73 | 0.4% | 92.8% |
| Kim Elementary School | 9 | 0.5% | 94.6% |
| Kim Undivided High School | 17 | 1% | 94.7% |
| Hoehne Schools | 293 | 2.2% | 93.5% |
| Trinidad Middle School | 158 | 3.6% | 91.4% |
| Fisher’s Peak Elementary School | 376 | 4% | 91.9% |
| Primero Elementary School | 133 | 4.7% | 92.1% |
| Aguilar Junior-Senior High School | 45 | 4.8% | 93% |
| Primero Junior-Senior High School | 119 | 4.9% | 92.2% |
| Trinidad High School | 210 | 4.9% | 92.4% |
| Aguilar Elementary School | 72 | 6.9% | 93% |
| County | 1,836 | 3.1% | 93.8% |
| 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.
