The top reported proficiency rate is 18% in English language arts. The lowest is 10% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Fremont County School District #38
Fremont County School District #38 is a small rural district on Wyoming's Wind River Reservation, serving students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade across two schools, Arapahoe Elementary and Arapahoe Charter High School. The district serves a community that is almost entirely Native American, with the great majority of students identifying as American Indian or Alaska Native. This is a defining characteristic of the district and shapes its identity, its community ties, and the conversations families will have with school staff about academics and support.
The district's state assessment results, from the WY-TOPP test in the most recent school year, show proficiency rates that are low across every tested grade and subject. In math, few students reached proficiency in any grade from third through eighth, with the strongest results still falling well below what most Wyoming districts post. English language arts follows a similar pattern, though eighth grade stands out as a relative bright spot, with a more substantial share of students demonstrating proficiency. Science, tested in fourth and eighth grades, also shows low proficiency. Against the comparison set among Fremont County's districts, the district sits in the bottom quartile for overall proficiency. Participation rates on state tests are strong, which means these results reflect nearly all eligible students rather than a skewed subset.
A few things complicate the picture. The tested cohorts are small, with roughly thirty to forty students per grade in the elementary and middle grades and even fewer at the high school level. In groups this small, a handful of students moving in or out, or a single year of unusually strong or weak performance, can shift results meaningfully. The state does not report a graduation rate for the district in the data available, and multi-year trend data was not provided, so there is no way to see whether these proficiency levels are improving, holding steady, or declining over time. Free and reduced-price lunch counts, special education rates, and English learner rates are also missing from the available data, so the economic and special-population context that often helps interpret test scores is absent here. A parent considering this district may want to ask school leaders directly about those supports and about any local assessment data the schools use to track student growth.
Chronic absenteeism is a concern the data makes plain. The district's chronic absenteeism rate places it in the bottom quartile among Fremont County's districts, meaning a large proportion of students miss enough school to put them at academic risk. This is a pattern that often correlates with the challenges rural reservation communities face, including transportation, health access, and housing instability. It is also a factor that likely feeds into the low proficiency numbers, since students who miss substantial school have fewer opportunities to build grade-level skills. This is something a parent would want to discuss with the school, both to understand what interventions are in place and to learn how the school works with families on attendance.
On the resource side, the district spends at the upper range among Fremont County's districts on a per-pupil basis, which reflects the higher costs of operating very small schools in a remote setting rather than a surplus of programs. The district has recently invested in a new track and field facility, publicly reported on the district's own website, serving students in grades five through twelve. For a district this size, a capital investment of that kind is a real addition to what the schools can offer athletically and to community life.
Housing in the area is relatively affordable compared with state and national benchmarks. Home values in the district's zip codes sit below the Wyoming median and well below the national median, and rents are modest. For families looking to buy, the gap between monthly rent and a mortgage payment is wide enough that ownership may be within reach for working families, though mortgage rates remain elevated. The area includes parts of Riverton and Kinnear, with Riverton being the larger of the two and offering more in the way of services and retail access.
What the data does not capture is the cultural and community dimension that matters deeply here. This is a district rooted in the Northern Arapaho community, and for families for whom that cultural continuity is a priority, the district offers something that no proficiency ranking can measure. The academic results, as they stand, are weak, and both the absenteeism and the missing graduation-rate data are flags a parent should raise directly. But the question of fit here depends on more than test scores. A family looking at this district should ask about academic intervention programs, attendance supports, high school course offerings, and post-graduation pathways, and should weigh the answers against what the community itself provides.
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