Original Research by School Decision on Montpelier 14
Montpelier 14 is a very small public school district in Stutsman County, North Dakota, serving students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade across two schools, Montpelier Elementary School and Montpelier High School. The district's enrollment is tiny, with only a handful of students in each grade level. This is the kind of place where nearly every child is known by name, and class sizes are naturally small because the community itself is small. The student body is overwhelmingly white, with a small number of Hispanic students and students identifying as two or more races, plus a single American Indian or Alaska Native student. This is a rural, homogeneous community, and families looking for a different peer environment would need to look elsewhere.
The district sits in a housing market that is affordable by both state and national standards. Home values in the area run below the North Dakota state benchmark and well below the national one, and rents are modest. The housing data draws from zip codes tied to Jamestown and Spiritwood, suggesting the district covers or borders those communities. Jamestown is the larger of the two and the more commercially active, while Spiritwood is smaller and quieter. For a family considering a move, the cost of ownership here is within reach on a middle income, and rental options are limited but inexpensive relative to most of the country.
Academic data for this district is thin, and what exists should be read with the understanding that the tested groups are extremely small. The state assessment results available cover only seventh grade for the most recent year, in math and English language arts, with fewer than ten students tested in each subject. In math, a majority of those tested reached proficiency. In ELA, fewer than half did. A single science result from an earlier year, at the fourth grade level, showed a lower proficiency band, though that data is older and the science assessment underwent a cut-score change that year, making comparisons unreliable. With groups this small, a single student's performance shifts the picture considerably, so these results are more a snapshot than a trend. No average scale scores were reported. No graduation rate was available in the data we reviewed, and no multi-year trend data could be computed. State testing data for other grade levels and subjects was not provided.
Several important data fields are missing entirely. Free or reduced-price lunch counts were not reported, so there is no picture here of the economic need among families in the district. Special education and English learner rates were also absent. No information on course offerings, advanced placement, dual credit, career pathways, or extracurricular programs was available, so a parent would need to contact the district directly to understand what the academic pathway looks like beyond the basics, especially at the high school level. No civil rights data on discipline, access, or staffing was provided. No locale brief was available for the district, and a search for recent parent-relevant district changes, such as curriculum updates, referendums, or property tax shifts, turned up nothing of lasting impact.
What this district offers is intimacy and simplicity. A child here will not be one of hundreds in a grade; they will be one of a handful, with the attention that comes with that. The tradeoff is breadth. With a district this small, the range of programs, electives, and specialized services is necessarily limited, and the data we have does not document what is offered. A parent weighing Montpelier 14 should ask the district directly about high school course sequences, college-credit opportunities, special education services, and what the graduation pathway looks like in practice, since none of that appears in the available record. The academic results on hand are too sparse and the tested groups too small to form a strong judgment about the quality of instruction, though the math result for the one grade tested is encouraging. For a family drawn to rural North Dakota life and a close-knit school community, this is a district worth a direct conversation. For a family prioritizing program depth or a diverse peer group, the fit is less clear.
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