Original Research by School Decision on Hope-page 85
Hope-Page Public School District #85 sits in Steele County, North Dakota, covering the communities of Page and Hope with a small enrollment that runs from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. The district operates two buildings: the elementary school in Page serves pre-kindergarten through sixth grade, while the high school in Hope serves grades seven through twelve. This arrangement grew out of a formal consolidation of the previously separate Hope and Page districts, which took effect in the 2020-2021 school year. Publicly reported plans at the time framed the merger as a path to long-term financial stability, letting the unified district pool resources toward its core educational mission while expanding what it could offer students.
The consolidation brought several additions that families in the area now have access to. The district lists post-secondary credit opportunities, STEM and STEAM programming, Choice Ready guidance activities, summer enrichment, and one-to-one technology among the offerings that grew out of the reorganization. For a rural district of this size, that breadth of programming is a genuine strength, giving students exposure to pathways and enrichment that a single small district operating alone might struggle to fund.
The student body is small and nearly entirely white, with a handful of students identified as American Indian or Alaska Native and a few listed as two or more races. The district does not report free or reduced-price lunch data, English learner counts, or special education rates in the information available here, so those dimensions of the student population are not visible in this dataset. A parent wanting to understand the economic makeup of the classrooms or the level of specialized support would need to ask the district directly.
State assessment results come from the ND A-PLUS test administered in the 2024-25 school year. Because the state changed both the assessment name and the proficiency cut scores for this cycle, trend comparisons against prior years are not reliable, so the results stand on their own as a first read under the new system. Proficiency is reported in ranges rather than exact figures, a common practice when grade-level cohorts are small enough that a precise percentage could identify individual students.
In math, the picture varies by grade. Third, sixth, and eighth grades land in a moderate range, while sixth grade reaches a higher band. Fourth and seventh grades fall into a lower range, suggesting a dip in those years that a parent may want to look into further with the school to understand what is driving the uneven pattern. English language arts is steadier across grades, with most tested grades sitting in a moderate range and eighth grade reaching a higher band. Science is tested only in fourth and eighth grades, and both fall into a moderate range. Participation rates are consistent across subjects and grades, though the exact tested counts are not reported.
Grade five results for math and ELA are absent from the data, as are grade ten results and grade eleven science. The dataset does not specify whether those grades were not tested, had results suppressed, or were simply not included in what was provided. Given the very small per-grade enrollment, missing results in a district like this often reflect small-cohort privacy rules rather than a gap in testing.
The housing market across the district's zip codes is modest by both state and national standards. Home values sit below the North Dakota benchmark and well below the national one, with the Page zip code carrying the most weight in the district's weighted value. The three contributing communities, Page, Buffalo, and Oriska, each have their own price points, but all fall below the state figure. The price-to-income ratio sits at a level that suggests housing is relatively attainable for working families compared with many parts of the country. Rental data was not available, so a picture of the rental market in these towns is not possible from what is here.
No locale brief was provided for the individual towns, and no neighbor comparison data was available to position the district against others in Steele County or the surrounding region. Civil rights data, course access details, staffing figures, and attendance information were also not included, so the narrative cannot speak to discipline patterns, advanced course availability, or teacher staffing ratios.
What emerges from the available data is a small, consolidated rural district that has used reorganization to broaden its academic offerings while keeping students in two familiar community buildings. Academic results under the new state assessment show a mixed but not alarming profile, with stronger reading outcomes than math in several grades and some grade-to-grade inconsistency in math that warrants a closer conversation with the district. For a family drawn to rural Steele County and looking for a small-school setting with post-secondary and STEM options that a district this size would not typically offer on its own, Hope-Page presents a reasonable option to explore.
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