The top reported proficiency rate is 0% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Ross School
Ross School, serving prekindergarten through eighth grade, is an exceptionally small rural school in the unincorporated community of Mosby, Montana. It is part of the Ross Elem district, which is itself a single-school district. The school’s size is the most defining characteristic. The total student enrollment is tiny, with just a handful of children, all of whom are white. The school serves kindergarten and second grade, with no students enrolled in any of the other elementary or middle school grades. Because the student body is so small, any English learner or special education data was not reported. Free or reduced-price lunch numbers were also not available, so the economic profile of the student body is not clear from the data.
The school sits in a community that has all but emptied. Mosby is an extremely remote former homesteading settlement on the semi-arid high plains of Garfield County. The nearest neighboring settlement is roughly a twenty-mile drive to the northeast. Mosby has no downtown, no grocery store, no school building within the community itself, and no functioning post office. The few remaining structures include an RV park and a church. The landscape is rolling ranchland dotted with oil wells from the historic Cat Creek field, but that industry has been in long-term decline for generations. The county itself has seen a steep population drop over the last century. This is not a place where families are moving in; it is a place where remnant families continue to live in deep isolation.
State testing data is available for the most recent reported year, but the results come from exactly one student who was tested. That student did not score at the proficient level in math, English language arts, or science. With a tested population of one, no reliable conclusion can be drawn about the school’s academic program. The data simply reflects a single student’s performance. The comparison fact-set, which looks at schools relative to other districts in Garfield County, could not compute a proficiency index because the cohort of tested students was too small to analyze. No graduation rate is reported because the school does not serve high school grades. Chronic absenteeism data was also not available.
No information is provided on course offerings, staffing, discipline, or the school’s physical facilities. The district brief turned up no parent-relevant changes of lasting impact in recent years, which is consistent with a district of this size that operates largely outside the public record. The school’s website was not provided, and no program offerings, such as special education services, gifted programs, or extracurricular activities, are listed in the data.
For a parent or resident considering this school, the picture is straightforward. This is a hyper-local, very small school serving a handful of children in a deeply rural and depopulated region. The academic performance data is too thin to assess. The school exists to serve the children of the few families still living in this part of Garfield County. A family moving here would want to discuss directly with the district or the school itself what the actual day-to-day experience looks like, including instruction, resources, and any plans for the future. The available data describes a school that is a vestige of a larger past, not an institution with a track record that can be meaningfully measured.
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