The top reported proficiency rate is 0% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Saco High School
Saco High School is a very small high school serving grades 9 through 12 in the agricultural town of Saco on Montana’s Hi-Line. The school is the high school for the Saco H S district, which a parent should understand covers the same tiny community. With an enrollment that is small even for a rural school and a student body that is entirely white, the school offers an intimate academic setting where every student is known.
The community context is essential to understanding this school. Saco is a compact, car-dependent town in the Milk River Valley that has experienced a population decline over the past decade. There are no major employers in town; the employed population is very small, and most residents commute to nearby Malta or Glasgow for work. Housing values are well below state and national benchmarks, and the local economy is oriented around agriculture and ranching. The school sits within the town's small footprint alongside a library branch and a local museum. This is not a growth community, and there is no evidence of new housing or commercial development.
State testing data for Saco High School is essentially absent. For the 2023-24 school year, the school reported zero students tested in math, English language arts, and science, with a zero percent proficiency rate. The comparison to other districts in Phillips County places the school in the bottom quartile for overall proficiency, though that positioning is based on sparse data. Because the school serves only high school grades and the state testing data reported here is for grades 3 through 8, a parent should understand that the available numbers may not reflect how the school's high school students perform on assessments that actually apply to their grade levels. The data provided does not include high-school-level assessment results, which is an important gap for any family to investigate directly with the school or district.
A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating that the student body comes from households with lower incomes. This is consistent with the town's economic profile. Civil rights data, including information on students with disabilities and English learners, was not available in this profile.
The school has no charter or magnet designation, and its programs and course offerings were not included in the data provided. There is no information about Advanced Placement, dual credit, career and technical education, or extracurricular opportunities. A parent looking for specific academic pathways or elective options would need to contact the school directly.
Saco High School fits a specific kind of family: one already rooted in this rural Hi-Line community, comfortable with a very small school environment, and invested in the agricultural and small-town way of life that defines the area. The lack of state testing data for high school grades and the absence of program information mean that families moving into the area or considering the district from outside should expect to do their own research on what academic options are actually available. For a family already in Saco, this is the local high school, and its size means it offers the close-knit experience typical of rural Montana schools of this scale.
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