Original Research by School Decision on Hazen Middle School
Hazen Middle School sits in the town of Hazen, a small Mercer County community along a state highway midway between two scenic byways. The town's identity is shaped by the energy industry, with nearby coal mines and power plants, alongside agriculture and recreation tied to Lake Sakakawea. Publicly reported sources describe a compact grid of a town with a downtown business district, summer concerts in the park, and civic anchors like Sakakawea Medical Center and the headquarters of two rural cooperatives. The population grew sharply during the energy boom decades, peaked years ago, and has been easing lower since. For a family considering this school, the setting is a quiet small town where the school is one of the central institutions.
This is a regular public middle school serving grades six through eight, part of the Hazen 3 district. The enrollment is small, with roughly equal class sizes across the three grades. The student body is largely white, with a handful of students identifying as American Indian or Alaska Native, Hispanic, multiracial, or Black. The school does not report free-or-reduced-price lunch counts, IEP rates, or English learner figures in the data we received, so we cannot characterize the economic needs or special-population makeup from what is available. A parent may want to ask the school directly about those supports.
Academic results come from North Dakota's current A-PLUS assessment, administered for the first time in this form in the most recent school year. Because the assessment name and proficiency cut scores both changed, the state flags trend comparability as unknown, meaning these results stand on their own without a reliable prior-year baseline. Participation was high across all grades and subjects.
The pattern across grades is mixed. In math, seventh graders performed well, with a clear majority reaching proficiency. Sixth grade math and eighth grade math landed in a lower-to-middling band, with somewhere between half and a modest majority proficient. English language arts followed a similar arc: seventh grade was the strongest, with a majority proficient, while sixth and eighth grades sat lower, with under half to about half of students proficient. Eighth grade science, the only science grade tested, landed in the same middle band as eighth grade math. The seventh grade results suggest the school is capable of moving a majority of students to proficiency in a given year. The weaker sixth and eighth grade results, particularly in ELA, are worth a closer conversation with the school about what is happening at entry and exit points.
Because Hazen Middle School serves only grades six through eight, there is no graduation rate to report. That metric applies to high schools and does not exist for this grade band. Similarly, the data we received does not include course access, staffing, discipline, attendance, or program offerings. These are gaps in what was provided rather than indicators of anything missing at the school itself. A parent looking into honors coursework, extracurriculars, or support services should contact the school directly.
We also looked for recent district-level changes that would matter to families and found little publicly reported, so we left that out rather than guess.
On the housing side, homes in Hazen's zip code carry a typical value below both the statewide and national benchmarks, and the price-to-income ratio sits below three, suggesting relative affordability for buyers with area incomes. Rent data was not available. The town's housing market reflects its stable-to-slowly-declining population: not much pressure, not much new construction, but steady ownership. For a family, this means modest housing costs in a community where the school is a known quantity rather than a rapidly changing one.
What this school appears to be is a small, conventional middle school in an energy-town community that has settled into a quieter chapter. The strongest academic signal is in seventh grade. The entry and exit grades have softer results that a parent would want to understand. The peer environment is small and fairly homogeneous. The town offers basic amenities, outdoor recreation nearby, and a slow pace. It fits a family seeking a small-town setting with affordable housing and a straightforward public school path, with the caveat that some of the things parents often want to know about, from lunch programs to specialized services, are not visible in the data and would need a direct conversation.
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