Original Research by School Decision on Sterling 35
Sterling 35 is a single-school rural district in North Dakota, serving pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. The district operates Sterling Elementary School, its only building, and the total enrollment is very small, with just a handful of students per grade level. Some grade levels within the band have no students enrolled at all in the year reported. The district is the kind of place where nearly every child is known by name, and classes are likely combined or taught in multi-age groupings given the low headcount.
The student body is almost entirely white, with one student identified as Black. Free-or-reduced-price lunch data was not reported, so the economic profile of the community is not something we can characterize from the available numbers. English learner and special education enrollment figures were also missing. A parent evaluating fit would want to ask the school directly about how it supports students with individualized education plans and what the income mix of the community looks like, since none of that appears in the data.
State assessment results are available for the 2017-18 school year through the North Dakota State Assessment. In math, across grades three through eight, the district's proficiency rate fell into a reported range that sits below a majority of students testing proficient. In English language arts, the proficiency range was higher, with a majority of tested students reaching proficiency. Participation was reported at a level below full enrollment, which can reflect small cohorts where a few absences shift the picture, or the realities of a tiny rural school. The state changed its assessment name and cut scores around this period, so these results are not cleanly comparable to earlier or later years. No multi-year trend data was available, which means we cannot say whether performance is improving, declining, or holding steady over time.
Because Sterling 35 does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report. That gap reflects the grade band, not a missing outcome. Students presumably transition to a neighboring high school district after eighth grade, though the data does not specify which one. A parent would want to confirm where Sterling Elementary graduates go next and how well the transition is handled.
The district brief notes that Sterling 35 is an extremely small rural operation with three teachers on staff. Publicly reported search results surfaced no evidence of recent referendums, property-tax shifts, or district-wide curriculum changes with lasting parent impact. A vague reference to new science materials appeared on the school's website, but there was not enough detail to confirm a substantive curriculum change. The absence of documented changes may simply reflect the scale of the district, where decisions are made informally and communicated directly to families rather than through public budget notices or strategic plans.
No locale brief was provided, so we have no grounded description of the town, housing values, commute patterns, or community character surrounding the school. Housing and rental data were not available. The community and economic context section was empty. Without this, a parent reading from outside the area has no picture of what living there looks like or what it costs. We looked for comparison data positioning Sterling 35 against neighboring North Dakota districts and found none, so we cannot say how its academic results or resources stack up regionally.
No information on program offerings, advanced coursework, career pathways, extracurriculars, discipline, attendance, or staffing ratios was available. For a district this small, the absence of specialized programs is expected. A school with roughly two dozen students across nine grade levels is unlikely to offer the breadth of electives, sports, or enrichment that a larger district can support. What it may offer instead is close attention and flexibility, but the data does not confirm that either way.
What the data does show is a very small, rural, pre-K-through-eight district with one school, a nearly homogeneous student body, modest math results, and stronger reading results from a single assessment year that is now several years old. The assessment data is dated, and no more recent results were provided, so a parent should ask the school for current NDSA scores before drawing conclusions. The most useful next step for any family considering Sterling 35 is a direct conversation with the school about daily class structure, teacher continuity, where students go for high school, and what academic and social support looks like in a setting this small.
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