The top reported proficiency rate is 0% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Hillcrest Colony Elementary
Hillcrest Colony Elementary is a very small school serving pre-kindergarten through eighth grade in the rural community of Power, Montana. It is part of the Vaughn Elem district. The school’s name includes “Colony,” which often signals a Hutterite community school, though the data does not confirm that explicitly. With a total enrollment that is tiny even for a rural school, the student body is entirely white. Information on economic disadvantage, students with disabilities, and English learners is not available in the data provided, so a parent would need to ask the school directly about these aspects.
State testing results are essentially absent from the public record. For math and English language arts, the reported proficiency rate is listed as zero, but the number of students tested is also zero. That means no students in the tested grades took the state assessment, or the data was suppressed due to extreme small numbers. Science testing had three students tested, but the results were suppressed. Given the very small enrollment in the tested grades—just a handful of students across grades three through eight—it is common for such data to be withheld for privacy reasons. A parent cannot draw any meaningful conclusion about academic proficiency from standardized test scores here. The school’s proficiency index, when compared with other districts in Cascade County, falls in the bottom quartile, but that ranking is based on an essentially empty data field for most subjects, so it should be interpreted with great caution.
Because the school only goes through eighth grade, there is no graduation rate to report. The school does not offer high school programs, AP courses, or career and technical pathways; such offerings are not part of its scope. Academic context beyond the handful of state test results is simply not available from the data set.
The community of Power is an unincorporated census-designated place in Teton County, though the school itself is listed under Cascade County. It is a rural service center for agriculture, with a stable population that has shown little growth. Housing values in the area’s ZIP code are above the state average, but the built environment is dispersed along rural roads with no traditional downtown. The school campus is likely the main civic gathering point, as is common for small Montana districts. Commuting to Great Falls, about a moderate drive southeast, is common for employment.
For parents considering Hillcrest Colony Elementary, the school offers a very small, rural learning environment where the entire school population fits into a single classroom grouping. The lack of standardized test data means that evaluating academic performance through typical metrics is not possible. A family living in or near the Hutterite colony or the surrounding agricultural area may already know the school through community connections. Anyone else would need to reach out to the school or district directly to understand its academic expectations, curriculum, and day-to-day operations.
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