Original Research by School Decision on Denton H S
Denton H S is a single-school high school district in Fergus County, Montana, serving grades nine through twelve. It is a very small district. The high school itself enrolls around a dozen students spread across the four grade levels, with a senior class that has just one student. Most students are white, with a small number of American Indian or Alaska Native students and a small number of students who identify as two or more races. The district operates as its own entity responsible for a single secondary school; any elementary or middle school needs would be handled by a neighboring district.
The state testing data for the 2024-25 school year was suppressed. With a student body this small, results are suppressed to protect student privacy, as the group is too small to report publicly without risk of identifying individuals. This means no proficiency rates for math or English language arts are available from state assessments for the current year, and a parent who wants to understand academic performance would need to speak directly with the school. The state has also changed its assessment name and cut scores, which makes year-over-year comparisons complicated even when data is reported.
Graduation rate data is not available here. The district exists outside the typical measures that apply to larger entities, and the absence of a reported graduation rate is consistent with the very small size and the fact that the state may suppress it for the same privacy reasons as the assessment results.
On the metric of chronic absenteeism, the district falls in the bottom quartile among Fergus County's districts. This is a high absenteeism rate, and given the very small enrollment—where a handful of students represents a large percentage—a parent should look into this further with the school to understand the context. Per-pupil current spending is in the upper range compared to other districts in the county. This is not surprising for a district with a very small student body, where fixed costs for a building, a teacher, and a principal are spread over a tiny number of students, producing a high per-student figure.
The housing market in the area is relatively affordable by state and national standards. Homes in the ZIP codes serving this district, centering on the town of Denton and including a portion of Lewistown, have a weighted home value below Montana's statewide median. Prices have been rising at a pace above the national trend. The national median household income and the prevailing mortgage rate suggest that homeownership in this area is accessible for a typical family compared to many parts of the state or country.
There is no publicly reported information on disciplinary incidents, course access, staffing ratios, or attendance patterns beyond the chronic absenteeism figure. The district brief found little of lasting impact in recent news about policy, curriculum, or referendum changes, which is typical for a very small rural district that does not generate the same public record as a larger one.
Who this fits. A family looking at Denton H S should be comfortable with an extremely small school environment. The student body is small enough that every student is known personally and the school functions almost like a private tutorial setting. Parents who want a wide range of elective courses, Advanced Placement offerings, or a large extracurricular program will not find it here; what the school offers in depth of personal attention it makes up for in limited breadth. The local housing is affordable, and the setting is rural. The school sits in a county with many small districts, so the comparison set is of similarly rural operations. The missing testing data is a genuine information gap, and talking to the principal or a current parent would be the best way to get a clear picture of how students perform and what the academic expectations are.
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