The reported proficiency rate for English language arts is 30%.
Original Research by School Decision on Nashua School
Nashua School serves children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade in the small, predominantly rural town of Nashua, Montana, which sits near the Fort Peck Indian Reservation and the Milk River in Valley County. The school is part of the Nashua K-12 Schools district, a very small system. The town itself is a quiet, agricultural community with a handful of local businesses and a history tied to the construction of the nearby Fort Peck Dam. Housing values in the area are well below the state and national medians, reflecting the modest scale of the local economy.
With a small enrollment for its grade band, this is an intimate school setting. The student body is predominantly white, with a substantial share of American Indian or Alaska Native students, and a small number of Hispanic and multiracial students. A large majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, indicating that many families face economic challenges. The school serves no middle or high school grades, so metrics like graduation rates and advanced coursework do not apply here.
State assessment results offer a limited picture. In mathematics, the school’s proficiency rate for all students was suppressed, meaning it could not be reported, likely due to a very small tested population. In English language arts, roughly three in ten students scored at the proficient level or above. Science results were also suppressed. On a composite measure of overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades, Nashua School places in the bottom quartile relative to other districts in Valley County, based on the limited number of districts with reportable data.
For a parent considering this school, the numbers point to a few things to explore further. The proficiency rate in English language arts is low, and math proficiency was not able to be reported at all due to the small group of test takers. A parent may want to ask the school directly about academic support, intervention programs, and how the school tracks student progress given the small class sizes that come with a small enrollment. The school does not appear to have publicly available information on chronic absenteeism, discipline, or staffing, so those are also open questions a family would need to raise with the district.
The town of Nashua offers very little in the way of walkable amenities or a downtown separate from the school campus; the school sits within the same small cluster as the town’s gas station, cafe, grocery store, and other civic functions. Major employers are scarce, with the school district itself likely among the largest, and the regional economic hub lies a short drive west in Glasgow. Outdoor recreation is nearby, including the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge and Fort Peck Lake. The population has been gradually declining over the long term, and no major new housing developments or growth projects are evident in available sources. For a family, this means a stable but shrinking community with limited local economic opportunity beyond what the school and a few small businesses provide.
The district did not show any recent policy changes, referendums, or curriculum shifts in publicly reported sources, which is consistent with a very small district that lacks the scale for frequent visible changes. A parent moving to the area should expect a straightforward, no-frills elementary school serving a small and economically stressed population, with academic performance that is low by state standards and a testing picture that is incomplete due to the school’s size. The intimacy of the setting may be a draw, but the academic challenges are real and deserve a direct conversation with the principal or teaching staff.
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