The top reported proficiency rate is 0% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Park High School
Park High School is the single high school serving the Park H S district in Livingston, Montana, and it enrolls all of the town’s ninth through twelfth graders. The school is mid-sized for a high school, with the largest group in the freshman class and a typical four-grade structure. The student body is overwhelmingly white, with a small number of Hispanic students and smaller numbers of American Indian, Black, and multiracial students. More than a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which indicates that while the school serves a broad cross-section of families, a substantial share comes from lower-income households.
State testing data was not available for Park High School. The records show a proficiency rate of zero percent and zero students tested across math, English language arts, and science, which is a gap rather than a result. This often reflects the fact that Montana administers its Smarter Balanced Assessment and science assessment to students in grades three through eight; high school students are not tested in the same way. Because the data appears to be for grades three through eight rather than for the high school’s actual grade range, there are no usable proficiency numbers for Park High. A parent who wants to understand academic performance would need to look at other measures, such as ACT or SAT scores, graduation rates, or individual course grades. The comparison data that does exist places the school in the bottom quartile relative to other districts in Park County, but with only two districts in the cohort for that metric, that comparison is a very narrow one and may not be informative.
The district itself appears stable. A search for recent changes including levies, referendums, curriculum shifts, or budget changes turned up nothing of substance, so a parent can assume a quiet operational environment, though that silence also means there is no visible public discussion of improvement efforts or new programming.
Livingston is a historic railroad town that has reinvented itself around tourism, fly fishing, and the arts. It sits along the Yellowstone River and is the original gateway to Yellowstone National Park’s north entrance. The downtown is walkable, with a restored rail depot museum, art galleries, and fly shops, and the town is compact enough that the high school is integrated into the community rather than isolated. Housing values are above both state and national benchmarks, and rents have been rising at a clip that exceeds typical inflation, putting the cost of living in the expensive range for a small Montana town. The unemployment rate is low, and median household income is solid, but the combination of high home prices and rising rents means that a family new to the area will be paying a premium relative to what local wages alone might suggest.
For a family considering Park High, the key facts are these: the school is the only high school in town, so there is no choice among public options. It serves a predominantly white student body with a moderate poverty rate. Academic test data for the high school is absent from the state’s public reporting, so it is hard to compare directly with other high schools on proficiency. The setting is a small, historic gateway town with a strong outdoor recreation culture, a walkable downtown, and a cost of housing that is high for the region. A parent who values a tight-knit community school with a clear town identity and who does not need to rely on state test scores as a decision point will find this a straightforward fit. A parent who wants to see academic benchmarks before enrolling will need to ask the school for its own data.
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