The top reported proficiency rate is 52% in Math. The lowest is 50% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Basin Elementary School
Basin Elementary School sits in Idaho City, the county seat of Boise County, a small historic mountain town northeast of Boise along the Ponderosa Pine Scenic Byway. Once a gold rush boomtown, Idaho City now centers its economy on tourism, hunting, fishing, and visits to historic sites, with Boise National Forest surrounding the community. The town retains a historic Main Street core where civic buildings, the Boise County Courthouse, and the school itself cluster together rather than on separated campuses. Publicly reported sources describe a population that has been essentially stable for decades, with no major housing developments on the horizon. State Highway 21 is the sole route connecting the town to Boise.
The school serves prekindergarten through sixth grade as a regular public school within Basin School District. Enrollment is small, appropriate for a rural mountain community of this size, and the student body is predominantly white. A modest share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on individualized education programs and English learner status was not available, so those population slices cannot be characterized here.
On state assessments, the picture is mixed and, in several grades, limited by small class sizes that trigger range reporting or suppression of proficiency figures rather than a single clean rate. In math, fourth grade stands out as a relative bright spot, with a clear majority of tested students reaching proficiency. Fifth grade math is weaker, with only about a third of students proficient. Third and sixth grade math results were reported only within a range, which limits what can be said about those grades. In English language arts, sixth grade landed at about half of students proficient. The other ELA grades, along with fifth grade science, were reported as ranges or had their tested counts suppressed. Average scale scores and participation rates were not available for any grade or subject. Parents looking for a sharper year-over-year read will find the trend data thin; only a single-year snapshot is available, and multi-year change could not be reliably computed.
Several factors shape these results. With roughly two dozen students per tested grade, a few children moving above or below the proficiency line shifts the picture substantially. The range reporting and suppression that appear throughout the data are characteristic of small rural schools where privacy protections kick in at low counts. A parent may want to ask the school directly about grade-level performance patterns and what interventions are in place, particularly in fifth grade math, where the proficiency rate was clearly lower than in the adjacent fourth grade.
The housing market in the school's zip code sits below the statewide benchmark but above the national figure, with values reflecting modest recent appreciation. Estimated monthly mortgage costs are substantial relative to typical incomes, and no rental market data was available for the immediate area. The affordability picture suggests that families buying here face a price-to-income ratio above the national norm, which is common in small recreational towns where second homes and tourism demand can lift prices beyond what local wages support. Idaho City has no public transit system, so daily life runs on personal vehicles along the highway corridor.
No data was provided on discipline, course access, staffing ratios, attendance, Title I status, or specialized programs. The district brief returned no recent referendums, curriculum changes, or property-tax shifts of lasting impact. This means a parent considering Basin Elementary should expect a small, rural, community-rooted school where academic results vary by grade and year, where the town itself is quiet and stable, and where filling in the blanks will require direct conversation with school staff about class sizes, support services, and what the current instructional focus looks like.
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