The top reported proficiency rate is 59% in Math. The lowest is 56% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Murtaugh Joint District
Murtaugh Joint District is a small, single-school system in Twin Falls County, Idaho, serving students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. The district operates one school, Murtaugh Schools, which carries the full grade span. This is a compact, rural setting where the entire student body moves through one building, which gives families a continuity of relationships with staff and classmates that larger, multi-school districts rarely match. The enrollment is modest for a district covering all grades, and the grade-level cohorts are small, which is worth keeping in mind when reading assessment results.
The student population is predominantly white, with a substantial Hispanic share. Other racial or ethnic groups are each represented by only a handful of students. The district did not report free-or-reduced-price-lunch counts, English learner data, or special education enrollment figures, so there is no clear picture here of the economic need or language-support profile of the student body. A parent may want to ask the district directly about these indicators, since they are absent from the available data.
On the Idaho ISAT for the most recent reported year, math proficiency varied widely across grade levels. Third and fourth grade landed in the middle range, with roughly half of tested students reaching proficiency. Sixth grade math was notably strong, and eighth grade was the district's clearest bright spot, with a large majority of students proficient. Seventh grade math was the weakest reported grade, with only about a third of students proficient. Fifth grade math results were suppressed into a wide range, so a precise read is not possible there. In English language arts, the pattern was similar. Third grade was near the midpoint, sixth grade was strong, and eighth grade was again the district's strongest showing. Seventh grade ELA was on the lower side. Fourth and fifth grade ELA results were suppressed into broad ranges, limiting what can be said about those grades. Science results for both tested grades, fifth and eighth, were also reported only as wide ranges rather than point values, so they do not support a firm conclusion.
The suppression of several grade-level results reflects the small size of each cohort. When only a few dozen students sit for a test in a given grade, state privacy rules often mask the exact figure. This is a common feature of very small districts and should not be read as a sign of poor performance. What is clear from the unmasked results is that the district tends to do better in the upper elementary and middle school years than in the early elementary grades or in seventh grade, where both math and ELA dip.
No graduation rate, Advanced Placement, career-technical, or dual-credit program data was available, and the district did not report any course-access or staffing figures. Civil-rights data on discipline, attendance, or access was also absent. The district brief searched for recent parent-relevant changes and found none that could be confirmed, so there is little to report on strategic direction or recent shifts.
On the housing side, the district draws almost entirely from the Murtaugh ZIP code, with a small contribution from Hansen. Home values in the area sit close to the Idaho state benchmark and above the national one, and the year-over-year trend shows a healthy appreciation. The estimated monthly mortgage cost reflects current interest rates near the mid-six percent range. The price-to-income ratio suggests that buying a home here is somewhat less of a stretch than in many parts of the country, though incomes in this rural corner of Twin Falls County may not match the national median used for that comparison.
What this district offers is a small, close-knit environment where students stay in one school from pre-K through graduation, with academic results that run from middling in the early grades to genuinely strong by eighth grade. The gaps in the data are wide, particularly around student support services, program offerings, and high school outcomes, so families considering Murtaugh would benefit from asking the district directly about graduation patterns, college and career pathways, and how it serves students with economic or language needs.
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