Ulen-hitterdal Elementary, Ulen MN

Original Research by School Decision on Ulen-hitterdal Elementary

Ulen-Hitterdal Elementary serves kindergarten through sixth grade in the small agricultural town of Ulen, a compact prairie community about an hour east of Fargo, North Dakota. Ulen has an older demographic and a strong Norwegian-American identity, with an economy built on agriculture services—West Central Ag Service’s grain elevator is among the largest in Minnesota—and local institutions like Northwestern Bank, Viking Manor nursing home, and Sanford Health’s family medicine clinic. The town is small enough that civic and commercial life concentrates along the State Highway 32 corridor, and the elementary school sits within that established grid. There is no evidence of significant new housing development, and the population, while stable over many decades, is currently reported to be declining. For a family considering this school, the setting is distinctly rural, with the Agassiz Recreational Trail offering a recreational asset and the annual Ulen Days festival providing a community touchstone.

The school is a regular public school, part of the Ulen-Hitterdal Public School District. Its enrollment is modest for an elementary serving kindergarten through sixth grade. A substantial share of its students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the economic base of the community. The student body is predominantly white, with a notable share identifying as two or more races and a smaller Hispanic presence. The school’s record on state assessments, which cover math, reading, and science, shows a pattern worth a close look. In math, proficiency rates varied noticeably by grade level in the most recent testing year. Third and fourth graders saw rates that were the strongest in the school, with about half or more meeting the standard. Fifth and sixth graders, however, posted considerably lower results, with the fifth-grade math proficiency rate notably soft. In reading, the picture was more consistent: roughly half of students in grades three through six met the proficiency benchmark. Science, tested only in fifth grade, returned a low proficiency rate.

Parents should be aware that these results represent a single year of data, and the school’s proficiency index across all tested subjects and grades sits above the midpoint among districts in Clay County. Still, the steep drop in upper-grade math and the low science figure are areas a parent might want to discuss further with the school to understand what supports are in place for those students. The school does not serve high school grades, so no graduation rate is reported, and data on chronic absenteeism was not available in the sources used here.

No information was found on the school’s course offerings, staffing ratios, or discipline patterns, so those aspects remain uncharacterized. The district itself, in available public reporting, showed few recent changes of lasting note for a parent to track. For a family already rooted in this rural corner of Clay County, or one seeking a very small elementary school in a tight-knit agricultural community, Ulen-Hitterdal Elementary is the local option. The academic picture is uneven across subjects and grade levels, and the school’s size means a parent will likely find it easy to engage directly with staff about those variations. The broader context is a town with a stable, older population and no major growth pressure—a setting where the school plays a central role in community life rather than one shaped by rapid demographic change.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 362%

School 62% · District 62%

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 463%

School 63% · District 63%

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 522%

School 22% · District 22%

▼ 13 pts below state median

Grade 631%

School 31% · District 31%

▲ 4 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 343%

School 43% · District 43%

▲ 1 pts above state median · even with county median

Grade 453%

School 53% · District 53%

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

Grade 553%

School 53% · District 53%

▼ 1 pts below state median

Grade 650%

School 50% · District 50%

▲ 4 pts above state median

Science

Grade 517%

School 17% · District 17%

▼ 8 pts below state median

This schoolULEN-HITTERDAL PUBLIC SCHOOL DIST, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income20%Higher-income64%44 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income40%Higher-income56%16 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income50%Higher-income73%23 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income0%Higher-income50%50 pp gap