Original Research by School Decision on Midway 128
Midway Public School District 128 is a small, rural district in Grand Forks County, North Dakota, serving students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade across two schools: Midway Elementary and Midway High. The enrollment is modest, with roughly two hundred students spread across every grade from pre-K to senior year. The community it draws from sits in a part of the county that includes areas near Grand Forks, Larimore, and Manvel. The district is predominantly white, with a Hispanic minority population and a small number of students identifying as Native American or two or more races. Free and reduced-price lunch data was not available, so the economic profile of the student body cannot be characterized from what we have. Information on English learners and students with individualized education programs was also missing.
State assessment results for the current year come from North Dakota's A-PLUS system, which is new enough that the state flags changes to both the assessment name and the proficiency cut scores across subjects. Because of those changes, trend comparisons with prior years are not available, so there is no way to tell from this data whether performance is rising or falling over time.
What the current year shows is a district with uneven proficiency across grades and subjects. In mathematics, third and fourth graders land in a range that sits around the middle, while fifth grade proficiency dips lower. Seventh grade math is the strongest result in the data, landing solidly above the midpoint. English language arts follows a similar pattern of variation: fourth grade stands out as the highest-performing group, while fifth grade is the weakest, with proficiency falling well below the middle of the range. Science results for fourth grade are also low. The state reports these results as ranges rather than single figures, which often reflects small cohort sizes and the privacy protections that come with them. A parent reading these results should keep in mind that in a district this size, a few students moving in or out of proficiency can shift the picture substantially from year to year. Participation rates were consistent across grades and subjects, though below full participation.
No graduation rate was provided, which is a gap a family with high school students may want to ask the district about directly. Course access, staffing levels, discipline data, and attendance information were all absent from the available data, so the picture of what happens inside classrooms day to day is limited. Program offerings, including any advanced coursework, career and technical education, or dual-credit options, were not reported, so we cannot characterize the academic pathways available to older students. The district did not surface any recent parent-relevant changes such as curriculum shifts, referendums, or property-tax actions in the material we reviewed.
The housing market in the areas Midway serves is relatively affordable compared with both state and national benchmarks. Home values across the contributing zip codes have been appreciating at a brisk pace recently, well above the state's overall rate of growth, though starting from a lower base. Rent data was available only for the Grand Forks zip code and sits at a level that makes renting modestly cheaper than carrying a mortgage on a typical home in the area. The price-to-income ratio suggests homes here remain within reach for households earning near the national median income, and the rent burden relative to income is low. For a family considering a move into the district, the cost of housing is unlikely to be a barrier, and the recent appreciation may appeal to those thinking about long-term equity.
What emerges from the available data is a small, rural district where assessment results vary widely by grade and subject, with some grades performing well and others trailing. The absence of trend data, graduation rates, program details, and staffing information leaves real gaps. A family evaluating Midway would benefit from direct conversation with the district about what the upper grades offer, how the district supports students in the grades where proficiency is lower, and what the high school experience looks like for college and career preparation.
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