The top reported proficiency rate is 0% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Richey High School
Richey High School serves grades nine through twelve in a tiny agricultural community in eastern Montana. With an enrollment that is very small for a high school, it operates as part of a combined PK-12 district that the town describes as the hub of community life. The school shares a superintendent and principal with the elementary building, and the entire campus sits within a compact town grid where school facilities host nearly all local events.
State testing data is not available for this school because Montana administers its Smarter Balanced assessments in grades three through eight, not at the high school level. A reader looking for math, English, or science proficiency rates will not find them here. The graduation rate was also not reported in the available sources. These gaps are not necessarily weaknesses; they simply reflect that the state’s standard academic accountability measures do not cover this grade band, and the very small size of the graduating class may affect public reporting. A family considering this school may want to ask the district directly about its internal measures of student progress and high school completion.
The student body is predominantly white, with a small share of students who are American Indian and an even smaller share who are Hispanic. Just over two-fifths of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a rate that places the school in a moderate range for economic disadvantage in this region. Information on students with disabilities and English learners was not reported in the data examined. The school’s size means that class cohorts are very small; typical high school course offerings are likely limited by the number of students and staff. The district currently employs about a dozen certified teachers across all grades, so the range of elective and advanced coursework may be narrower than in larger schools.
The context of Richey itself matters for any family weighing this school. The town is a rural service stop on Montana Highway 16, surrounded by wheat fields, cattle ranches, and oil-pumping units. Its population has been in sustained decline, contracting from a mid-20th-century peak to a current size that is roughly half of what it once was. There are no major employers beyond the school, a bank branch, a hardware store, and a handful of highway-front businesses. The nearest larger towns—Glendive, Circle, and Sidney—are each about a forty-five-minute drive away. The housing market is affordable relative to the state and national benchmarks, with home values that have edged down slightly in the most recent year.
One practical reflection of the shrinking enrollment is a sports cooperative formed with Lambert, another small nearby school, to field teams as R&L Fusion. This co-op arrangement is common in rural Montana and gives students access to team sports they might not otherwise have.
Richey High School fits a family looking for an extremely small, tightly knit rural setting where the school and town are essentially one. The limited course and extracurricular offerings are a trade-off for that scale. A parent will want to confirm directly with the school what academic pathways are available—dual credit, CTE, or advanced coursework—and how the co-op arrangement affects athletics and other activities. The absence of publicly reported graduation and testing data means relying on conversations with district staff and perhaps families already in the community to get a full picture of student outcomes.
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