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Test scores

Ponderosa Elementary School · AURORA, CO
See how it ranks: all Colorado schools by score · Arapahoe County schools by score

CMAS, SY 2024-25

All grades, all students. % Met or Exceeded Expectations.
English Language Arts
18.6%
State avg 44.9%
District avg 50.3%
County avg 42.5%
-2.5pp since 2023-24
Mathematics
17.9%
State avg 36.1%
District avg 45.2%
County avg 36.3%
+0.2pp since 2023-24
Science
21.1%
State avg 36.4%
District avg 42.4%
County avg 34.2%
+12.9pp since 2023-24

What this means: On the CMAS, Colorado's statewide test, about 19 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level, about 18 of 100 do math at grade level, and about 21 of 100 are at grade level in science. Across all Colorado schools, those numbers are about 45, 36, and 36. Reading and writing scores are down about 3 points since 2023, while math scores have held steady and science scores are up about 13 points.

BeatsExpectations

Demographically-adjusted score · methodology
Tier
AS EXPECTED
Performing as predicted given the school's student profile
Actual proficiency
18.2%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
23.4%
based on CO schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
-5.2pp
below demographic expectation

What this means: About 18% of students here test proficient in math and reading, compared with the roughly 23% typical for Colorado schools with a similar share of low-income students. BeatsExpectations measures results against demographically similar schools rather than by raw scores, and this school falls within the typical range, neither among Colorado's top nor bottom 10%.

BeatsExpectations runs a per-state regression of proficiency on free/reduced-lunch share, then scores each school by residual. How this is calculated →

By grade, SY 2024-25

School score vs state average per tested grade.
GradeEnglish Language ArtsMathematicsScience
SchoolStaten testedSchoolStaten testedSchoolStaten tested
Grade 310.3%43.2%9711.8%42.8%102N/AN/AN/A
Grade 420.8%43.5%7719.3%39.0%83N/AN/AN/A
Grade 526.2%48.8%8423.6%41.4%8921.1%40.5%90

2-year history

All grades, all students. Ponderosa   Colorado avg

English Language Arts

44212023-2445192024-25
YearSchoolDistrictCountyState
SY 2024-2518.6%50.3%42.5%44.9%
SY 2023-2421.1%50.2%41.6%44.1%

Mathematics

34182023-2436182024-25
YearSchoolDistrictCountyState
SY 2024-2517.9%45.2%36.3%36.1%
SY 2023-2417.7%43.0%33.4%34.4%

Science

3482023-2436212024-25
YearSchoolDistrictCountyState
SY 2024-2521.1%42.4%34.2%36.4%
SY 2023-248.2%42.0%31.7%34.4%

Recent discussions

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How to read these scores

What is CMAS?
Colorado public-school students in grades 3 through 8 take the Colorado Measures of Academic Success (CMAS) in English Language Arts and Math each spring. Science CMAS is administered at grades 5, 8, and 11.
What does "% Met or Exceeded Expectations" mean?
It is the percentage of students at the school who scored at "Met Expectations" or "Exceeded Expectations" on the CMAS 5-level performance scale (Did Not Yet Meet, Partially Met, Approached, Met, Exceeded). Met and above is Colorado's grade-level benchmark. A higher number is better.
What does 18.6% mean for English Language Arts at Ponderosa Elementary School?
It means about 18.6 percent of students tested at Ponderosa Elementary School performed at grade level or above on the CMAS English Language Arts test in 2024-25. The statewide average for Colorado that year was 44.9%. The other students fell into the lower performance levels.
How is the state average calculated?
It is a weighted average, not a simple average of each school's number. We multiply each public school's score by how many of its students tested, add those together for all schools in Colorado, and divide by the total students tested that year. This way a big school with 1,500 students counts more than a small school with 50 students, which is the right way to ask "how did the typical student do this year?". District and county averages on this page use the same method, just scoped to that district or county.
Where does this data come from?
Colorado Department of Education (CDE), Colorado Measures of Academic Success (CMAS). School-level overall results published annually by CDE. Headline metric is the cumulative "Met or Exceeded Expectations" rate (top 2 of CMAS's 5-level performance scale).
How often is it updated?
CMAS is administered once a year (spring). Results are released by the state in the summer or early fall. We refresh this page after each annual release.

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