Original Research by School Decision on Eight Mile 6
Eight Mile School District #6 is a small rural district in Williams County, North Dakota, serving students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade across two buildings: Eight Mile Elementary School and Eight Mile High School. The district sits in the Williston area, a place shaped by the Bakken oil boom and its aftereffects. Housing here carries the mark of that history. Typical home values run well above the North Dakota state benchmark and roughly match the national figure, reflecting the inflated cost basis that rapid energy development left behind. Rents are moderate relative to local incomes, and buying remains more expensive than renting by a comfortable margin given current mortgage rates. The district brief turned up no recent referendums, property-tax shifts, curriculum overhauls, or other parent-relevant changes, so what follows is a snapshot of the district as it currently stands.
The student body is small, with roughly two children per grade in pre-kindergarten and class sizes across the upper grades that are modest. The enrollment is split in a way that is uncommon in many districts: a slight plurality of students are white, and a nearly equal share are American Indian or Alaska Native. A smaller group identifies as two or more races, and a modest portion is Hispanic. This composition gives the district a distinctly mixed peer environment. Free-or-reduced-price lunch data was not reported, and figures for special-education identification and English-learner status were also missing, so the picture of economic need and specialized support is incomplete.
State testing comes from the ND A-PLUS assessment in its first year, with new cut scores across all subjects. Because of that change, trend comparisons against prior years are not reliable, and the results should be read as a baseline rather than a trajectory. Proficiency is reported as ranges, which is typical for a district with small grade-level cohorts where exact figures are suppressed for privacy.
In math, the early grades show a wide spread. Third grade lands in a moderate range, fourth grade dips lower, and fifth grade sits at the bottom of the scale. Middle grades recover somewhat, with seventh grade returning to the same moderate band as third, while sixth and eighth fall back below. The pattern is uneven, with no clear upward climb from year to year, and the fifth-grade result stands out as a soft spot. A parent may want to ask the district how math instruction is sequenced across the elementary grades and what interventions are in place where proficiency lags.
English language arts tells a somewhat different story. Third and fourth grade sit in a lower-to-moderate band, fifth grade drops, but from sixth grade onward the range improves. Seventh and eighth grade reach the strongest band the district posts in either subject. That upper-middle-grade strength in reading and writing is a genuine bright point, suggesting the district is moving students toward grade-level literacy as they approach high school.
Science is tested only in fourth and eighth grade. Fourth grade spans a very wide range that includes the possibility of near-zero proficiency, which is difficult to interpret from a range alone. Eighth grade lands in a moderate band, more in line with the district's middle-grade ELA results. Science results are thin and worth a direct conversation with the school about what is happening in those tested grades.
No graduation rate, civil-rights data, course-access information, staffing figures, or program offerings were available in the provided material. For a district this small, some of those gaps reflect limited reporting rather than absence of effort, but families looking for Advanced Placement, career-technical, or dual-credit pathways will need to contact the high school directly, since none of that is described here.
What the data supports is a picture of a small, rural, ethnically mixed district in a high-cost energy-region housing market, with literacy that strengthens as students move through the middle grades and math that remains inconsistent. Families comfortable with a close-knit setting and willing to ask questions about instruction and support will find a district that is navigable and approachable. Those seeking a wide catalog of specialized programs or published performance trends will find less to go on and should plan to fill those gaps in conversation with the schools.
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