The reported proficiency rate for English language arts is 67%.
Original Research by School Decision on Paris Elementary School
Paris Elementary sits in the Bear Lake County seat, a small rural town along US Route 89 that connects northeast toward Montpelier and southwest toward Logan, Utah. The town was settled by Mormon pioneers and retains a strong Latter-day Saint heritage, anchored by the Bear Lake Stake Tabernacle, a sandstone church that stands as the most prominent civic and religious landmark. Surrounding land is used mainly for ranching. The built environment is low-density residential with civic and religious buildings clustered along the highway. Paris holds an annual July 4 celebration with a chuck wagon breakfast, a pageant at the Tabernacle, a parade through town, and a youth rodeo at the rodeo grounds. No public library or transit system was mentioned in publicly reported sources. The town has seen a slight population decline in recent years, though median home values have risen.
The school serves pre-kindergarten through fifth grade and is part of Bear Lake County District. Enrollment is small for its grade band, with roughly even distribution across grades and a slight increase in the fifth-grade class. The student body is nearly entirely white, with a small number of Hispanic students and a couple of students identifying as American Indian or Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. A little over half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on special education enrollment and English learner status was not available.
State testing results from the most recent year present a mixed picture. In fourth-grade math, proficiency fell within a range that sits above the middle, with a solid share of tested students meeting the bar. Fourth-grade ELA showed a clear majority of students reaching proficiency, which is a strength for a school of this size. Third-grade ELA, by contrast, showed no students reaching proficiency on the reported count, though the state reported this as a range that extends upward, reflecting the small number of tested students and the uncertainty that comes with it. Third-grade math proficiency was also reported as a wide range. Fifth-grade results in both math and ELA were suppressed, and fifth-grade science results were missing entirely. Average scale scores and participation rates were not reported for any grade or subject.
A parent looking at these results should keep the small testing numbers in mind. With roughly twenty students per tested grade, a few children scoring above or below the proficiency line can shift the picture considerably, and the state's use of ranges and suppression for some grades reflects that reality. The fourth-grade results are the most informative available, and they point to reasonably strong outcomes in both math and reading for that cohort. The third-grade ELA result is the one that stands out as a soft spot. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, asking how early literacy instruction is structured and what interventions are in place for the youngest tested grades.
We looked for district-level information about Bear Lake County District, including any recent levy or referendum activity, but found little, so we left it out rather than guess. No data on Title I status, staffing ratios, course access, discipline, or attendance was available for this school. No program offerings were listed. The multi-year trend data available was limited to a single ELA series across all grades, but the change was not computed in a way that allows for reliable comparison.
On the housing side, home values in the Paris zip code sit below both the Idaho state benchmark and the national benchmark, making this one of the more affordable places to buy a home in the region. Rental data was not available. The price-to-income ratio is above the national figure, meaning that relative to typical earnings, homes here are somewhat less attainable than the national picture would suggest. Mortgage rates remain elevated by recent historical standards.
Paris Elementary is a small, rural, predominantly white elementary school serving a close-knit ranching community with a deep religious and civic identity. The academic picture is genuinely mixed: fourth-grade results are encouraging, third-grade reading is a point to investigate, and several grades lack reportable results at all. Families drawn to a small-town setting with strong community roots and affordable housing will find much to like about the area, and the school's fourth-grade outcomes suggest it can produce solid results. The gaps in the data and the third-grade reading result are what to ask about directly.
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