Original Research by School Decision on Yellowstone Academy Elem
Yellowstone Academy Elem is a very small school serving pre-kindergarten through sixth grade in Billings, Montana. It operates as a single-school district under the same name, a structure that means the school and its district administration are one entity. The school is not a charter and carries no magnet designation; its Title I status was not identified in the available records.
The school enrolls a small number of students, with most concentrated in grades three through six and very few in the early elementary grades. Among those enrolled, a substantial majority qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, marking this as a high-poverty student population. The student body is predominantly white, with notable shares of students who are American Indian or Alaska Native and students who identify as two or more races; a smaller share are Hispanic. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available in the public record, so it is unclear what share of students receive special education or language support services.
Because the school’s tested grades include only a small number of students, Montana’s reporting rules suppress the state assessment results for math, English language arts, and science. No proficiency rates, average scale scores, or participation rates are publicly reported. A parent who wants to understand academic performance would need to ask the school directly about its own internal assessments, classroom progress measures, or any alternative evaluations it uses. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report, and no chronic absenteeism data was found in the available records. The neighbor comparison, which positions the school relative to districts in Yellowstone County, was not able to compute proficiency, graduation, or absenteeism measures because the entity-level data was missing.
The school is located in Billings, Montana’s largest city and the primary trade and distribution center for a vast region covering much of eastern Montana, northern Wyoming, and parts of the Dakotas. Billings was founded as a railroad town and has experienced sustained growth since its early days, earning the nickname “Magic City.” It functions as the regional hub for healthcare, finance, retail, and conventions, with hotel and event infrastructure that exceeds any other area within a broad five-state radius. The city continues to grow, and its economy is supported partly by its role as a service hub for energy development to the east and north.
Civic and cultural anchors include ZooMontana, the Yellowstone Art Museum, and the Moss Mansion. The Yellowstone River runs through the southeast portion of the city, and the sandstone formations known as “the Rims” define the local landscape. Billings Logan International Airport provides air service. The city is also the county seat of Yellowstone County. No specific information about public transit or library access was found in the search results.
Housing values in the area served by the school are above both the national benchmark and the Montana state benchmark. Rents in the area are moderate relative to local incomes. The broader county housing market shows a mix of activity, with a modest number of homes on the market and listings spending slightly more time available than a year earlier.
Yellowstone Academy Elem is a very small, high-poverty elementary school that operates as its own district. Its state testing results are suppressed, so a family considering this school would want to visit and ask about the school’s own academic data and student support systems directly. The school sits within a growing regional city that offers a wide range of civic and cultural amenities but is a car-dependent setting. The district is too small to generate the kind of publicly reported changes found in larger systems, and no recent curriculum shifts, referenda, or property-tax changes were identified.
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