The top reported proficiency rate is 0% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Rapelje 7-8
Rapelje 7-8 is a middle school serving seventh and eighth graders within the Rapelje Elem district, a tiny rural system in central Montana. The school sits in the unincorporated community of Rapelje, a place that was once a railroad town and grain-shipping center and is now home to about 88 people according to the 2020 census. The community has experienced long-term population decline after the railroad left decades ago, and the remaining businesses and civic life cluster along the highway. In a place this small, the K-12 school functions as the primary social anchor, not a separated campus. The local economy centers on agriculture, grain elevators, ranching, and seasonal hunting and recreation. A nearby mountain bike race and two national wildlife refuges provide community texture.
Enrollment at Rapelje 7-8 is very small. Nearly all students are white, and about a quarter of enrolled students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The school serves only two grade levels, and the numbers are low enough that, for state testing, the results are either reported as zero or suppressed to protect student privacy. In the 2023-24 school year, math and English language arts tests from the Smarter Balanced Assessment showed zero students scoring at the proficient level or above, but it is important to note that the total number of students tested in each subject was also zero. The science assessment was taken by a very small number of students, but the proficiency results were suppressed from public reporting because the count was too small to release reliably. The state testing data that is present offers no usable picture of academic performance at this school; a parent who wants to understand how well students are learning would need to talk directly with the school.
The comparison against other districts in Stillwater County places Rapelje Elem’s overall proficiency index in the bottom quartile among the county’s districts. However, that comparison is based on just a handful of districts that reported proficiency data, and the number of tested students in Rapelje is so small that the metric carries limited weight. No graduation rate applies here, as the school does not serve high school grades. Chronic absenteeism data was also not available.
The school offers no reported data on course access, staffing, discipline, or attendance. Special education and English learner counts were not provided in the available records. The district itself, Rapelje Elem, is a two-school system with 46 total students across the entire K-12 program, and no recent parent-relevant changes were identified in publicly reported sources. The district website exists but yielded no additional program or policy detail for this brief.
For a family considering Rapelje 7-8, the core reality is a very small school in a shrinking rural community where the middle school grades are part of a combined K-12 building that anchors the town. The academic performance data is essentially unreadable due to the tiny testing population, so a family would need to rely on direct inquiry with the school about instruction, curriculum, and student progress. There is no meaningful peer comparison within the county for this context. The school fits a family that values an intimate, locally grounded setting and is prepared to work closely with the school to understand academic outcomes. It would not fit a family that expects standard metrics and course offerings or wants a school with larger peer groups and more extracurricular breadth.
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