The top reported proficiency rate is 49% in Science. The lowest is 37% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Robert Asp Elementary
Robert Asp Elementary serves kindergarten through fourth grade in Moorhead, a mid-sized city in the Red River Valley that forms the eastern half of the Fargo-Moorhead metro area. The school is part of the Moorhead Area Public Schools district, which in late 2024 won voter approval for a major bond referendum that will fund a new elementary school, a high school expansion, and district-wide facility upgrades. A new K-4 building, Dorothy Dodds Elementary, already opened in fall 2024 to handle steady enrollment growth, and the high school’s Career Academy added a welding lab the same year. These moves signal a district responding to expansion, which matters for a family choosing an elementary school, since attendance zones and class sizes may continue to shift.
Robert Asp Elementary is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet. Its enrollment is large for an elementary serving only kindergarten through fourth grade, and the student body is diverse. Just over half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the racial and ethnic composition includes a majority of white students alongside notable shares of Hispanic students, Black students, American Indian or Alaska Native students, and students of two or more races, with smaller numbers of Asian and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students.
State testing results place Robert Asp in a specific position relative to other schools in its district and county. On state assessments in math and reading, the school’s combined proficiency rate across tested grades sits below the midpoint when compared to other districts in Clay County. In third-grade math, proficiency is in the middle range, while fourth-grade math is lower. On the reading side, third and fourth grade each show proficiency at roughly the same level as the fourth-grade math result, a soft spot for both subjects at the upper elementary level. These are the only state-tested grades the school covers, and this is the first year of data for this assessment, so there is no trend to compare against. A parent may want to look into how the school supports students in the upper primary grades, especially in reading and math, and what interventions are in place. Science results are from an older test and are not current enough to characterize.
Moorhead’s economy is anchored by education, food processing, and manufacturing. The city has three college campuses, a sugar beet processing plant, malt manufacturing, and container manufacturing. The top employer in the city is the school district itself, followed by two colleges and a major food processor. The housing market in the area shows home values and rents that are below the state average, and buying a home is more affordable than the national price-to-income benchmark. The city has grown steadily, and the district’s recent bond vote and new school construction reflect that trajectory.
Robert Asp is located near downtown Moorhead, close to the Red River and the civic and cultural core, including the Hjemkomst Center and the region’s museums. The school’s neighborhood is a mix of residential blocks and the college campuses that define much of the city’s character. For a family considering this school, the immediate context is a growing district with facility investments underway, an elementary school that serves a diverse student body, and state test results that point to areas where the school is working to lift proficiency in the upper primary grades.
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