The top reported proficiency rate is 0% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Grass Range High School
Grass Range High School, serving only grades nine through twelve, sits in a tiny ranching crossroads town in central Montana. The school itself is the high school arm of Grass Range Public Schools, the district that covers the town and the surrounding agricultural area. The high school building, along with the elementary and middle grades, is located on East Second Street within the town’s small footprint.
The student body is very small. The enrollment count across all four high school grades is modest. The largest single-grade group is the tenth grade, with the eleventh grade being the smallest. The student population is predominantly white, with a small share of Hispanic students and a very small share of American Indian or Alaska Native students. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which is a common indicator of low household income in the area. The town of Grass Range itself has a very low median household income and a high poverty rate, and the population has been declining over the long term. The surrounding economy is cattle ranching and dryland wheat and barley farming; there are no major employers in town beyond the school, a mercantile, a post office, and a restaurant. Most residents travel a considerable distance west to Lewistown for more extensive shopping and services. The town’s character is described as a working rural place, and there is no growth or development pipeline evident.
State testing data is recorded for the school for the most recent year, but the results show zero students tested in math, English language arts, and science at the grade band covered by the state assessments. Because the school serves only high school grades and Montana administers its general state assessments in grades three through eight, this is a gap explained by the grade band the school serves. No proficiency information from those assessments is available for this school as a result. The comparison against other districts in Fergus County, which is based on available data from other schools that did test, places this school’s proficiency index in the bottom quartile, but that positioning is derived from a cohort of only a handful of districts that had reported values, and the comparison notes that this school’s value was zero. The graduation rate is absent from the data. Chronic absenteeism data is also missing.
The school’s website, publicly reported, indicates that it offers typical programming for a small rural high school. The district runs a summer food program and a Farm and Ranch to School program, and a parent-teacher organization is active. There is no information in the data about course offerings, Advanced Placement, dual credit, career and technical education pathways, or extracurriculars. There is also no data on staffing ratios, teacher qualifications, discipline rates, or special education and English learner enrollment.
A family considering Grass Range High School is looking at a very small, rural educational setting in a town with a declining population and limited local economy. The school serves a community where most families have low incomes, and the student body is small enough that a parent can know virtually every other family. The absence of state test data is a structural feature of the school’s grade band, not a sign of weak performance, but it also means there is no standardized measure of academic attainment available from that source. The graduation rate is not in the data, so a family would need to ask the school directly about how many students complete high school. The lack of program data means a family would want to inquire about what courses are offered, whether there are any college-credit or career-preparation opportunities, and what activities exist for students. This is a school that fits a family seeking an extremely small, community-anchored high school in a remote agricultural setting, where the school day and the town are tightly interwoven. A family looking for broad academic programming, large peer groups, or extensive extracurricular options would need to look elsewhere.
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