Jefferson County Public Schools (Colorado)

Jefferson County Public Schools
The sign at district headquarters in Golden. Building Bright Futures
Location
West Pleasant View, Colorado
Coordinates	39°44′20″N 105°09′53″W / 39.73876°N 105.16473°W / 39.73876; -105.16473Coordinates: 39°44′20″N 105°09′53″W / 39.73876°N 105.16473°W / 39.73876; -105.16473
Information
Founded	1950
School number	R-1
Enrollment	85,000 (May 2006)
Area	Jefferson County and portions of the City and County of Broomfield
Website	jeffcopublicschools.org

Jefferson County School District R-1 (a.k.a. Jefferson County Public Schools or Jeffco Public Schools) is a school district in Jefferson County, Colorado. The district is headquartered at the Jeffco Public Schools Education Center in West Pleasant View, an unincorporated area of the county near Golden in the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. Jeffco Public Schools serves more than 86,000 students in 155 schools, including nine option schools and eighteen charter schools. It is the second-largest school district in Colorado, having been surpassed in 2013 by Denver Public Schools, which has an enrollment of approximately 87,000.

2015-16 spending per pupil: $8,500

Graduation rate as of 2014-15: 82.9%
High school drop-out rate as of 2014-15: 1.8%

The first school in Jefferson County and the second school in Colorado opened in Golden on January 9, 1860. It stood at around today's 1304 Washington Avenue and was a rented log cabin, with school taught by Thomas Daughterty, with 18 students, financed through tuition and subscription. Its second term was taught by Miss M. F. Manly. When Jefferson County was organized by the Territorial government in 1861, the capability of organizing public schools became reality, and George West became the first superintendent of Jefferson County schools. After a mill levy was created in 1862, the first two school districts, Golden and Vasquez (roughly today's Wheat Ridge/Arvada area), were organized in 1863. That September the first public school in the county opened in Golden.

Over time, as the population grew and spread across the county, more and more school districts were organized, each with its own elected board to govern them. They were a diverse variety of schools, from the stately brick edifices of urban Golden which operated through the traditional school year, to the rural one-room wooden schoolhouses that operated during the summer months because winter in the mountains made it difficult for students to attend. Some school districts only rented buildings for class; others shared into neighboring counties. The first building constructed as a Jefferson County public school, around the area of 14th and Arapahoe Streets in Golden, was never completed and eventually sold in 1866 to Colorado Territorial Governor Alexander Cummings for $2,700 for use as the Territorial Executive Building. Its replacement, the first completed public school building in Jefferson County, still stands today at 1420 Washington Avenue in Golden. After the completion of its successor at today's 1314 Cheyenne Street in 1873, later known as the South School, Jefferson County's first senior high school, Golden High School, was organized. The first public school graduations in Jefferson County were held in the 1880s.