Lone Tree Schools: DCSD, Charters and How to Enroll

Douglas County School District runs 45 elementary schools, 9 middle schools, 9 high schools, 6 alternative schools and 20 charter schools across the county, for about 61,000 students. Your address puts you in an attendance zone, and the school for that zone is what DCSD calls your neighborhood or address-assigned school, the school you are assigned to based on your residence address, where no application is needed. Plug the address into the district's School Locator Map and you have your answer before the moving truck is booked. The schools the City names for Lone Tree, Highlands Ranch High School and Cresthill Middle, sit in what the district calls its East Highlands Ranch region (the Highlands Ranch High School and Rock Canyon feeders).

Then there is open enrollment. You can request a different DCSD school, including one in another town, on a space-available basis; the district calls that your school of choice, and placement there is not guaranteed. For the 2027-28 school year, Round 1 runs from 8am on Monday, November 2, 2026 to 4pm on Tuesday, December 1, 2026; offers appear at 8am on December 8 in the EngagED parent portal and you accept by 4pm on December 15. Round 2 runs from 8am on Friday, January 22, 2027 to 4pm on Monday, August 2, 2027 and is first come, first served, with Round 1 waitlists ahead of it. Round 1 applicants who are not placed go on an annual prioritized list that carries priority over Round 2.

Eagle Ridge Elementary on Timberline Road is a K-5 and a Lighthouse Leader in Me school, and the district's page for the Lyric neighborhood names it as the elementary serving Lyric until the new school opens. Lone Tree Elementary in Heritage Hills opened in 2007 and is the district's magnet school here; its own site describes the theme as "Real-World Inquiry-to-Action," projects that connect classroom learning to the community. Eagle Academy on Teddy Lane is a high school built for students who want a different path, with an ACE work-study program that earns elective credit through a job. The City's own schools page also lists the Lone Tree Bridge Program and the Douglas County Legacy Campus among the DCSD programs serving the city.

Two pages settle the question most people ask. The City of Lone Tree's schools page lists Cresthill Middle School and Highlands Ranch High School (opened 1987) among the schools serving Lone Tree, and DCSD's real-estate page for Lyric says the neighborhood is served by Eagle Ridge, Cresthill and Highlands Ranch High. Rocky Heights Middle and Rock Canyon High carry Littleton addresses on the district's list but sit in the 80124 ZIP, and Wildcat Mountain Elementary feeds them. Silver Spruce Elementary (6585 Collegiate Drive) is new in August 2026: it combines Acres Green, the elementary at 13524 Acres Green Drive in Lone Tree, with Fox Creek. The district says the Acres Green building and playground stay open to the community while the roof is repaired, and it will ask neighbors about future uses.

Douglas County School District is building a new public K-5 in the Lyric neighborhood of RidgeGate, funded by the 2024 bond, to open in August 2027 for the 2027-28 school year with room for 750 students. It is called Elementary School 50 until the district picks a permanent name, and Doug Humphreys is its principal. The district says it has determined and proposed attendance boundaries for it, and the City lists the project as active construction. We wrote it up when ground broke: new elementary school coming to RidgeGate in 2027.

Where a page does not print a grade span or an address, we have not guessed one; the school's own site has it, along with its lottery dates. The district's charter list runs 20 schools countywide, and every charter runs its own application, separate from the district's open enrollment rounds. For private schools, the City's page names Ambleside School and the Montessori School of Lone Tree.

DCSD bus service is for students at their assigned neighborhood school; the district's FAQ says transportation is not available to students who are open enrolled. Rides are $1 each way per student under board policy, billed quarterly to the student's MySchoolBucks account, with waivers for students with a transportation IEP and families on the Free and Reduced program. For 2026-27 the district says the annual bus pass is not available because of rolling route cancellations, so plan on the per-ride charge. Passes are requested at engaged.dcsdk12.org under Manage Transportation.