The top reported proficiency rate is 0% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Fort Smith School
Fort Smith School, a public elementary school serving pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, is part of Montana’s Hardin Elementary School District. The school itself is located in Fort Smith, a very small rural census-designated place on the Crow Indian Reservation alongside the Bighorn River. Data from the most recent school year shows that the school operated with a very small student body. More recent publicly reported information indicates that Fort Smith School closed in May 2025, meaning that families in the community now send their children to schools in Hardin, a drive of about 42 miles along the state highway.
For the period when the school was active, state testing results are largely absent. In math and English language arts, no students were recorded as having taken the assessments, and a proficiency rate of zero appears in the data. In science, the small number of test takers triggered suppression of the result. Very small schools often have data that is suppressed or unreported, and that is the case here. As a consequence, there is no reliable academic achievement picture to describe. The school’s proficiency index, when placed relative to districts in Big Horn County, landed in the bottom quartile, but that comparison is built on nearly no tested information.
The student body was small. It was composed almost entirely of students who identify as American Indian or Alaska Native, with a smaller number of White students and a single Hispanic student. Every single enrolled student qualified for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating a community of very high economic need. No data on special education or English learner status was reported.
The community of Fort Smith is itself a study in contraction. It is a remote gateway town to the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, with sparse housing and virtually no commercial core. Population figures for such a small place are inconsistent, but sources suggest decline or stagnation. The closing of the local elementary school is a tangible sign of that trend. There is no downtown, no sidewalk network, and few civic institutions beyond the recreation area and the historic Fort C.F. Smith site. Major employers are not publicly listed, but likely include the National Park Service, agriculture, and tribal government.
For a family considering Fort Smith School while it was operating, the draw would have been proximity to home in a very small, rural community. The school provided a kindergarten-to-fifth-grade education in an intimate setting where every family was known. The trade-off was an absence of comparative academic data, limited program breadth, and the reality that the school has since closed. Students from Fort Smith now attend schools in Hardin, which means a long daily commute. The loss of the local school also reshapes what kind of educational pathway families can access directly from the community. There is no longer a public school in Fort Smith, so the academic options available are those in the Hardin Elementary District, and the peer environment there will be different both in size and demographics.
Given the closure, a parent reading about Fort Smith School today will encounter a school that existed during the 2023-24 school year but is no longer operating. The context that matters now is not what the school itself offered, but how the Hardin Elementary District serves students from the Fort Smith area and what the transportation realities are for families living at the mouth of Bighorn Canyon.
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