Original Research by School Decision on Ellendale 40
Ellendale Public School District 40 is a small, rural North Dakota district serving students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. It operates five schools: Ellendale Elementary, Ellendale Middle School, Ellendale High School, Maple River Colony School, and Ellendale High Virtual Academy. The inclusion of a colony school points to a Hutterite community within the district's boundaries, and the virtual academy adds a nontraditional option for high schoolers. The overall enrollment is modest, and each grade-level cohort is small enough that a few students can shift proficiency results noticeably from year to year.
The student body is predominantly white, with a small Hispanic presence and a handful of American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian, and multiracial students. Free-or-reduced-price lunch data was not available, so the economic profile of the student population cannot be characterized from what was provided. Individualized education program and English learner counts were also missing. A parent wanting to understand student support services would need to ask the district directly.
Academic results come from North Dakota's A-PLUS assessment for the 2024-25 school year. This is a new assessment with revised cut scores, which means the results are not directly comparable to prior years and no trend analysis is possible. Proficiency is reported as ranges rather than precise figures, a pattern that reflects the small cohort sizes. The picture across grades is mixed. In math, fifth grade stands out as a relative bright spot, with a majority of students reaching proficiency. Third and fourth grade math results fall in a lower band, and middle grades land somewhere in between. English language arts follows a similar pattern: fifth grade shows stronger proficiency, while fourth and sixth grade results are weaker. Science was tested in fourth and eighth grade, with fourth grade landing in a middling range and eighth grade results on the lower end. Participation rates were generally solid, though a couple of grade levels dipped. A parent may want to look into the variability between grades further with the school, particularly the contrast between stronger and weaker cohorts, to understand whether this reflects small-sample noise or a consistent instructional pattern.
No graduation rate data was available in the provided material. The district does serve high school grades, so this is a genuine gap rather than a case where the metric does not apply. Civil rights data, including discipline and course access information, was also not available. Program offerings such as AP, dual credit, or career pathways were not included, so families should contact the district to learn what is available at the high school level.
The district sits in Dickey County. Housing data draws on two zip codes, one anchored in Ellendale itself and another tied to Oakes. Home values in the area are well below both the North Dakota state benchmark and the national benchmark, making this one of the more affordable places to buy a home relative to income. The price-to-income ratio sits below the national level, and recent year-over-year home value growth has been brisk. Rental data was not available. The broader economic backdrop includes a national unemployment rate that has held steady, and mortgage rates that have fluctuated in the mid-six range. Publicly reported research did not surface any referendums, curriculum changes, property-tax shifts, or other parent-relevant district developments of lasting impact. The search returned mostly directory, demographic, and fiscal information.
What this district offers is a small-community, pre-K-through-12 pathway with a virtual academy option and a colony school serving a distinct local population. The academic results are uneven across grades, though the assessment is new and the cohorts are small enough that the ranges should be read with that context in mind. Housing is affordable. Families considering Ellendale would benefit from direct conversations with the district about high school programming, student support services, and what drives the grade-to-grade variation in proficiency.
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