The top reported proficiency rate is 0% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Frontier 7-8
Frontier 7-8 is a school that serves only seventh and eighth graders in Wolf Point, a small commercial center on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in northeastern Montana. It is a very small school; its total enrollment is modest for a two-grade middle school. The student body is predominantly American Indian or Alaska Native, with smaller shares of students who are Hispanic, white, or of two or more races. Every student at this school qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, a marker of very high poverty. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available.
State testing results for this school are largely absent. In math and English language arts, the proficiency rate was reported as zero percent, but the number of students tested was also zero. That means no students appear to have taken these assessments, so there is no meaningful performance information from those subjects. For science, fewer than a dozen students were tested, and the proficiency result was suppressed to protect student privacy. Overall, the school’s proficiency index, calculated across all tested subjects and grades with reported results, places it in the bottom quartile relative to districts in Roosevelt County. However, because the number of tested students is so small and testing gaps exist, the available academic indicators are thin and should be interpreted with caution. A parent may want to look into what testing was administered and how the school measures student progress through other means.
No data was available on course access, staffing ratios, discipline rates, or attendance patterns. Because Frontier 7-8 does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report. The school is part of the Frontier Elem district, but no recent information about district-level changes, referenda, levies, or strategic priorities was found in public sources.
Wolf Point is a small town that has seen a population decline in recent decades. The local economy relies on retail, wholesale, and grain storage and processing along the BNSF Railway. The city is the largest community on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation and functions as a trade center for area farmers and ranchers and as a hub for the Sioux and Assiniboine tribes. The town’s compact layout places schools, the county library, a community college facility, and the Amtrak station within a few blocks of each other. Housing values in the area are well below both the state and national averages, reflecting the region’s lower cost of living.
For a family considering this school, the most salient features are its very small size, the near-universal poverty rate among students, and the limited state testing data. The school may fit a family that values a close-knit, community-based setting within a predominantly Native American community and is comfortable with the absence of standardized test results from which to judge academic performance. Because the school only covers two grades, families would need to look at the district’s elementary and high school options for the rest of a student’s K-12 pathway. The broader Wolf Point area offers lower housing costs and a small-town, reservation-based lifestyle, but the population is contracting and major public information about recent district initiatives is missing.
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