Original Research by School Decision on Hazen Elementary School
Hazen Elementary School sits in a small Mercer County town along Highway 200, part of the Hazen 3 school district in western North Dakota. It serves kindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school, drawing from a community whose economy is anchored by nearby coal mines and power plants, agriculture, and recreation tied to Lake Sakakawea. The town's population grew rapidly during the energy boom of the 1970s and 1980s, peaked sometime after, and has been drifting downward since. Publicly reported sources describe the population as stable at just over its current level, but the trajectory is flat to slightly declining. For a family considering this school, that context matters: the community is tight-knit and self-contained, with a compact downtown grid, summer concerts in the parks, walking trails, a golf course, hockey and skating facilities, and a community theater. Major employers include Sakakawea Medical Center, West River Telecom Cooperative, and Roughrider Electric Cooperative, all headquartered or based locally.
The school's enrollment is modest, with fairly even distribution across the six grade levels. The student body is predominantly white, with small representations of Hispanic, American Indian, and multiracial students. A relatively low share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch compared with many public schools nationally, which reflects the working-class stability of the local energy economy rather than affluence. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not available, so those pictures remain incomplete. A parent with specific questions about special education services or language support would want to ask the school directly.
On state testing, Hazen Elementary is in the first year of North Dakota's new A-PLUS assessment, which means the proficiency results come with a fresh assessment name and adjusted cut scores. Because of those changes, no trend comparison is possible yet; this is a baseline year. Across the tested grades, proficiency runs in a moderate range, with real variation by subject and grade. In math, third grade lands in the upper-middle of the scale, fourth grade comes in stronger, and fifth grade sits lower. In English language arts, third and fifth grade land in the same upper-middle band, but fourth grade dips noticeably. Science, tested only in fourth grade, comes in on the stronger end. Participation is solid across all grades and subjects. The fourth-grade ELA dip is the kind of soft spot a parent may want to look into further with the school, particularly whether it reflects a cohort issue, a curricular transition, or simply the noise of a new assessment in its first year. Without prior-year data, it is hard to say.
Housing in the Hazen zip code is affordable by both state and national standards, with typical home values sitting below the North Dakota benchmark and well below the national one. The price-to-income ratio is modest, meaning a family earning the area's median income faces a lighter purchase burden than in most of the country. Rental data was not available. For a family relocating to the area for energy-sector work or seeking a lower-cost small-town setting, housing access is a genuine strength of this community.
What is missing from the available data is substantial. No staffing ratios, attendance figures, course or program offerings, discipline data, or civil-rights reporting were provided, so this account cannot speak to class sizes, teacher experience, enrichment programs, or school climate beyond what test participation suggests. The school's Title I status was also not reported. No district-level strategic changes or recent initiatives surfaced in the research, so the district brief came back empty. A family evaluating Hazen Elementary should treat the academic picture as a partial one: a baseline year under a new state test, with a few grade-level variations worth asking about, set in a stable, affordable community whose fortunes ride on the energy economy and whose civic life centers on parks, trails, and Lake Sakakawea.
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