Original Research by School Decision on Anamoose 14
Anamoose Public School District 14 is a very small rural district in Sheridan County, North Dakota, serving pre-kindergarten through sixth grade from a single school, Anamoose Elementary. The enrollment is small even for a Prairie district of this grade span, with just a handful of students per grade level. The student body is nearly entirely white, with one Hispanic student and one student of two or more races. Free-or-reduced-price lunch data, special education counts, and English learner figures were all missing from the available information, so the economic and linguistic profile of the student body cannot be characterized from what was provided. A parent wanting those details would need to ask the district directly.
On the academic side, the 2024-25 results come from the ND A-PLUS assessment, which is a new state test with changed cut scores, so comparisons to prior years are not reliable. The third-grade results are the strongest signal in the data. Math proficiency for third grade falls in a high range, and English language arts for the same grade lands in a moderate-to-high range. These early-grade results suggest the district's youngest tested students are generally meeting state standards. The picture shifts in the upper grades. Seventh-grade math falls in a moderate range, while eighth-grade math sits in a low range. English language arts for seventh grade is in a low range, and eighth-grade ELA is in a low-to-moderate range. Eighth-grade science is also in a low range. Because the district officially serves only through sixth grade, these seventh- and eighth-grade results likely reflect Anamoose-resident students who are tuitioned to neighboring districts for those grades, a common arrangement for small North Dakota districts without their own middle schools. The results are reported as ranges rather than precise figures, which is typical when very few students are tested and privacy protections kick in. Participation across all reported grades was at the floor of what states typically require. Average scale scores and tested-student counts were not available.
There is no graduation rate to report, which is expected: the district does not serve high school grades. Civil rights data on discipline, course access, and staffing was not available in the provided material. No program offerings, advanced coursework, or extracurricular details surfaced, which is consistent with a district of this size and grade band but leaves a gap for families weighing enrichment options. No neighbor comparison set was provided, so the district cannot be positioned against its Sheridan County peers here.
The housing market in the district's area is modest relative to the state and the nation. The district's weighted home value sits well below the North Dakota state benchmark and roughly half the national figure, drawn from contributing ZIP codes around Rugby and Drake. The price-to-income ratio is low, meaning housing here is relatively affordable for working families compared with much of the country. Rent data was not available. The district brief turned up no recent referendum, curriculum overhaul, pedagogy shift, or property-tax change of lasting impact, and publicly reported material on the district is thin.
What the data paints is a tiny, homogeneous early-grades district where the youngest tested students perform well but where upper-grade results, likely reflecting students sent elsewhere, are weaker. The housing is affordable, the setting is rural, and the district appears stable in its operations. Families considering Anamoose should weigh the close-knit environment of a single small elementary school against the reality that the district's own academic track record is only directly observable through sixth grade, and that the available data on student support services is sparse.
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