Colo-NESCO Middle/High School

Colo-NESCO Middle/High School is a high school of compact scale in Colo, Iowa, overseen by Colo-NESCO Comm School District, enrolling 216 students in grades 5 through 12. By comparison, Iowa's public schools average about 468 students each, so Colo-NESCO Middle/High School sits 54% smaller than that benchmark.

Colo-NESCO Comm School District comprises 2 schools with combined enrollment of 385 students; Colo-NESCO Middle/High School is among them.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Colo-NESCO Middle/High School shows that 90% of students identify as White, making the school strongly White-majority. The remainder looks like 5% Hispanic, 4% multiracial.

In terms of school funding signals, Staff filings list 20 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 10.8:1 students per teacher. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 17.3:1, putting Colo-NESCO Middle/High School tighter than the state norm the norm. About 43% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. By comparison, Story County runs at roughly 28%, so the school's eligibility rate is meaningfully above the surrounding baseline.

With demographic context factored in, Colo-NESCO Middle/High School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 70.6%, the actual is 72.6%, a residual of +2.0 points.

Zooming out to the county, community-level numbers for Story County indicate the typical household earns roughly $69,685 per year, roughly 55% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 6% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Colo-NESCO Middle/High School is one of 26 public schools in Story County (combined enrollment of about 11,665 students).

The closest other public school is Nevada Middle School, roughly 6.3 miles away. Within ten miles, there are 8 other public schools, a sparser pattern than typical urban areas. On composite proficiency, Colo-NESCO Middle/High School comes 7th of 9 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 78.8%.

The campus sits in a rural setting.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count shrank 21%: 274 students in 2018 compared to 216 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio fell from 11.9:1 in 2018 to 10.8:1 today.

On this page, recent activity here tends to focus on pickup logistics, teacher feedback, and after-school programs. The community welcomes input from current and former families.