Original Research by School Decision on Mls-mohall Elementary School
MLS-Mohall Elementary School sits in the heart of Mohall, a very small rural agricultural town that serves as the county seat of Renville County, North Dakota. The school is part of the Mohall-Lansford-Sherwood 1 district, which consolidated from three separate community districts and uses the Mavericks nickname. Mohall itself sits roughly fifty miles north of Minot, the nearest urban center, and has been experiencing gradual population decline since its mid-twentieth-century peak, a pattern common to small Great Plains farming communities. The town's compact grid means the courthouse, local businesses, and school facilities sit close together, and civic life revolves around these anchors rather than separate campuses on the edge of town.
The school serves pre-kindergarten through sixth grade and operates as a regular public school. Its enrollment is small, as one would expect for a town of this size, and grade-level cohorts are modest. The student body is overwhelmingly white, with only a handful of students identifying as American Indian or Alaska Native, Hispanic, or multiracial. A relatively low share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch compared with many rural schools. Data on English learners and students receiving special education services was not available, so we cannot characterize those populations here.
State assessment results come from the 2024-25 ND A-PLUS assessment. Because this is a new assessment with changed cut scores, no year-over-year trend comparison is possible, and a parent reading these results should treat them as a fresh baseline rather than a continuation of prior years' data. The picture across grade levels is mixed and varies by subject and grade. In the earliest tested grades, math proficiency runs strong, with third and fourth grade landing in the upper ranges. Fourth-grade math and science results stand out as particularly solid. English language arts tells a similar story in fourth grade, where proficiency reaches the upper band, but third and fifth grade ELA results sit in a lower range. Science at fourth grade is a bright spot.
The upper grades present a different pattern. Math proficiency declines as students move through fifth and sixth grade into lower bands, and the lowest reported ranges appear in what the state recorded for grades seven and eight. ELA in the upper grades also lands in the mid-to-lower range. The school's official grade span runs through sixth grade, yet the state reported assessment results for grades seven and eight under this school's profile. This may reflect a district-wide testing configuration or a grade arrangement that has shifted; a parent may want to look into this further with the school to clarify which grades are physically housed at this building.
Participation rates across most tested grades hover around the high end, with a couple of grades dipping somewhat lower. No average scale scores were reported, and tested-student counts were not available, which limits how precisely one can interpret the ranges.
There is no graduation rate to report, which is expected for an elementary school serving only through sixth grade. Civil-rights data, discipline information, course-access details, staffing ratios, and attendance figures were not available in the sources we reviewed, so those dimensions of school life go unaddressed here rather than guessed at. We searched for the district's recent parent-relevant changes and strategic priorities but found little, so we left that out as well.
Housing in Mohall is notably affordable. Typical home values sit well below both the North Dakota state benchmark and the national benchmark, and the price-to-income ratio is low by national standards. For a family considering a move to the area, this means homeownership is within reach on a modest income. The trade-off is a town in long-term population decline, with limited housing turnover and few signs of new commercial development. Those who remain are largely employed, and the community functions as a stable if quietly contracting agricultural center.
MLS-Mohall Elementary offers a small, community-rooted setting with strong early-grade results in math and science and mixed performance in English language arts and upper grades. A family drawn to rural life, affordable housing, and a tight-knit small-town environment may find it a reasonable fit, particularly for the pre-kindergarten through fourth-grade range where the academic results are strongest. For the upper elementary years, a parent would want to ask the school directly about the trajectory of those results, the grade configuration question, and what support structures are in place as cohorts move toward middle school.
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