The top reported proficiency rate is 0% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Stanford School
Stanford is a small agricultural town and the county seat of Judith Basin County, with an economy rooted in livestock and small grains. A recent industrial addition is a pulse processing and transloading facility, which brings new employment to the area. The town maintains a rural character, with civic life clustered around a small downtown that includes the county museum and free library. The built environment is low-density, and street life is minimal outside of annual events like the CMR Stampede rodeo. Housing values in the area are well below statewide and national medians, and values have seen a slight year-over-year decline. The national economic context shows a stable unemployment rate and mortgage rates in the midsingle digits.
Stanford School serves students from prekindergarten through grade six and is part of the Stanford K-12 Schools district. The school is the elementary campus for the district, with a single building that feeds into the district’s high school for grades seven through twelve. The student body is small, composed almost entirely of white students with a modest Hispanic representation. More than a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, a common share for a rural Montana school.
Because this is an elementary school, there is no four-year graduation rate to report. State testing data for math and English language arts in grades three through eight was available, but no students were tested in the 2023-24 school year. The school reported zero test takers in those subjects, and the proficiency rate is recorded as zero percent. It is not possible to determine from the data whether no students were enrolled in the tested grades that year, whether the school was exempted from testing for some reason, or whether there was a data reporting issue. A parent or resident should clarify this with the school or district office to understand how academic progress is measured and reported for the elementary grades. Science testing was attempted, but results for that subject were suppressed due to a very small tested group, which is standard practice to protect student privacy.
Compared to the few other districts in Judith Basin County, the school’s overall proficiency index lands in the bottom quartile. The cohort of comparison districts is very small, so this relative position should be interpreted with caution and in the context of the missing testing data for math and English. There were no reported figures for chronic absenteeism, and no discipline, course access, or staffing data were available, so this profile does not speak to those dimensions of school environment.
The district is a single, small K-12 system serving the town and surrounding rural area. A search for recent district changes or strategic initiatives turned up little that was publicly reported. The school’s size, rural setting, and grade span mean it offers an intimate learning environment where most families in town know one another. The elementary school is physically part of the same small community as the town’s other civic institutions, not located on a separate campus. Families considering Stanford School should weigh the very small student community and agricultural setting against the complete absence of usable state test results, which makes it difficult to compare academic performance with other elementary schools even within the same county.
See more original research from School Decision →