Bill Metz Elementary School

Bill Metz Elementary School is a low-enrollment elementary-level community in MONTE VISTA, Colorado, operated by Monte Vista School District No. C-8. The school hosts 253 students in grades 2 through 5. Compared to the state average of about 379 students per school, that is 33% smaller than typical.

Within Monte Vista School District No. C-8, which oversees 6 schools and 975 students, Bill Metz Elementary School is one campus in the system.

Looking at the student body, Bill Metz Elementary School reports that 66% of the student body identifies as Hispanic. The remainder looks like 29% White, 2% Native American. By comparison, Rio Grande County as a whole is about 41% Hispanic, so the school skews meaningfully more Hispanic than its surroundings.

On the resource side, Bill Metz Elementary School shows 25 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 10.1:1. The state averages around 16.6:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. About 76% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. By comparison, Rio Grande County runs at roughly 62%, so the school's eligibility rate is above the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Bill Metz Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 20.7%, the actual is 24.4%, a residual of +3.7 points.

In the surrounding community, community-level numbers for Rio Grande County indicate the typical household earns roughly $64,411 per year, 35% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 13%. Bill Metz Elementary School is one of 11 public schools in Rio Grande County (combined enrollment of about 1,628 students).

Nearest neighbor: Monte Vista On-Line Academy, around 0.2 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 5 other public schools cluster around Bill Metz Elementary School. Among the 4 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Bill Metz Elementary School ranks 3rd on composite proficiency, beneath the local average of 28.1%.

The campus sits in an outlying setting.

Trend over the last 7 years. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Bill Metz Elementary School has fell 33%, going from 375 students in 2018 to 253 in 2025. Over the same period, the Hispanic share contracted from 75% to 66%. Class-load math has tightened: from 12.1:1 in 2018 to 10.1:1 in 2025.

On this page, posts here usually surface around open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.