The top reported proficiency rate is 17% in English language arts. The lowest is 0% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Hillside Colony School
Hillside Colony School, located north of Sunburst on Loop Road, is listed as closed, so for a parent or resident reading this, the question is less about attending and more about understanding what it was. It served a single grade, reported as M through M, which in Montana’s grading structure indicates a multi-grade school that does not align to a traditional elementary, middle, or high span. The school belonged to Liberty Elem, a very small K-through-8 district covering a largely agricultural patch of Toole County near the Canadian border.
Because the school is closed, most of the standard data a family would use to judge a school simply was not collected or reported for its final years. There is no enrollment count, no breakdown of student race or ethnicity, no share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, no data on students with disabilities or English learners, and no information on discipline, staffing, or course access. The school operated outside the measures that give a full picture of a school community. State assessment results exist from a single year in the most recent testing cycle, and they come from a very small group of test-takers—so small that any comparison to other schools would not be meaningful. On the math assessment, no student scored at the proficient level. In English language arts, a small share of students met the proficiency bar. On the science assessment, the count of tested students was minimal and none scored proficient. A parent looking at these results for a closed school would want to understand that the numbers reflect an extremely small group, not a pattern that would apply to a typical school population.
The school’s location in Sunburst places it in a town that has gone through a dramatic arc. Sunburst boomed during the 1920s oil discovery in the Kevin-Sunburst field, peaked at a population many times its current size, and then shrank back to a small agricultural community after the refinery closed and oil development wound down in the 1970s. The 2020 census recorded fewer residents than the peak, though the town is now estimated to be growing again at a modest pace. It is a car-dependent rural town on Interstate 15, roughly a dozen miles from the Canadian border, about an hour from Glacier National Park, and shaped by farms, ranches, and the still-producing oil field. The town’s schools are at its center, with Sunburst Schools running a K-through-12 program and North Toole County High School located in town. A community center built in 2021 and the public library serve as gathering places.
For the Liberty Elem district that Hillside Colony School was part of, publicly reported information turned up no record of recent referenda, curriculum changes, property-tax shifts, or other lasting changes that would matter to a parent. That is not unusual for a very small rural K-through-8 district in Montana, where the scale of operations is often small enough that major public debates or bond measures do not arise frequently.
What this all means for a person reading is straightforward. Hillside Colony School is no longer operating. If you are looking into this school specifically, you are looking at a closed rural school that served a multi-grade group of students in a small agricultural town. The assessment data from its last years shows very low proficiency rates, but on such a tiny number of students that the numbers do not support a broader judgment about the school’s quality in its active years. No other academic, demographic, or program information is available to round out the picture. For a family considering the Sunburst area today, the active schools in the town are Sunburst Grade School and North Toole County High School, which would be the relevant places to investigate further.
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