The reported proficiency rate for Science is 0%.
Original Research by School Decision on Divide School
Divide School sits in the far southern reach of Silver Bow County, serving the rural, unincorporated community of Divide from preschool through eighth grade. The school is the only building in the Divide Elem district, a single-school, rural-remote district of very small enrollment serving the Big Hole River valley. The grade band ends at eighth grade, so there is no high school on site, and no graduation rate is reported for this school.
The community around the school is tiny and widely dispersed. Divide itself has no downtown, no concentrated street grid, and very few services. The built environment consists of scattered buildings along Interstate 15 and Montana Highways 43 and 91, with the school located on a separated rural campus at 50 Schoolhouse Road. The Big Hole River, a blue-ribbon trout fishery, runs through the valley, and the surrounding landscape is defined by the Pioneer and Highland Mountains. Outdoor recreation—fishing, floating, rock-climbing, hunting—drives what little economic activity exists, supplemented by a few guest ranches and agriculture. The nearest lodging and services are miles away in Melrose and Wise River, and residents likely travel to Butte or Dillon for most employment.
Enrollment is very small, typical for a remote rural school of this type. The student body is composed entirely of white students. Data on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, students with disabilities served under an Individualized Education Program, and English learners were not found in available records, so a full picture of the economic and special-education profile is not possible from the data on hand.
State testing data for the 2023-24 school year provides an incomplete picture. In math and English language arts, the number of students tested was small enough that results were suppressed for privacy reasons, so no proficiency rate is available for those subjects. Science testing reported a zero percent proficiency rate, though with a similarly small tested count. Because the school serves only grades PK through eight, these results cover the full tested grade span. The small enrollment means that year-over-year trends and subgroup comparisons are essentially not calculable from the data. The school’s overall proficiency index, which averages the available subject rates, placed it in the bottom quartile relative to the six districts in Silver Bow County when the comparison was run, though the comparison set includes only two districts for which a proficiency index could be computed, so the context is limited.
No information was found on programs such as advanced coursework, career and technical education, or extracurricular offerings. Discipline, staffing, attendance, and chronic absenteeism data were also absent from the sources. The district brief turned up no recent curriculum changes, facility referendums, tax measures, or other parent-relevant developments; the district operates on a scale where such publicly documented changes are uncommon.
For a family considering Divide School, the central reality is the setting. This is a school for a family that values a remote, rural, outdoor-oriented life and is willing to drive long distances for services, employment, and secondary schooling. The academic profile is difficult to assess from the available testing data due to the very small student population, which also limits the range of programs and peer groupings a family might expect. A parent with a child who will need special education services or English learner support may want to inquire directly with the school about what is available, as that data was not reported. The school’s location and size mean that families who are not part of the immediate Divide community will need to be comfortable with a long commute and a school environment where every student is known personally.
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