Original Research by School Decision on Hagan Elementary School
Hagan Elementary School sits on 29th Street in Williston, North Dakota, serving kindergarten through fourth grade as part of Williston Basin School District 7. It is a regular public school with an enrollment that is moderate for an elementary building, spread fairly evenly across its five grade levels. The student body is majority white, with a sizable Hispanic population and smaller groups of Black, multiracial, and American Indian students. Just over a quarter of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not available, so families whose children fall into those categories may want to ask the school directly about services.
State testing results come from the 2024-25 school year, the first year of North Dakota's new A-PLUS assessment with revised proficiency cut scores. Because both the test name and the cut scores changed, the state flags this year as not comparable to prior results, and there is no usable trend. What the current results show is sobering. Math proficiency in grades three and four falls in a reported range that is low. English language arts in grade three sits in the same low band, and grade four ELA is lower still. Science, tested only in grade four, shows the weakest results of the three subjects. Participation was strong, so the results reflect nearly the full student body. These are the numbers the state has published, and a parent may want to look into this further with the school, particularly to understand how the new assessment's expectations differ from the old and what the district's response plan looks like.
Williston itself is a city reshaped by the Bakken oil boom. Publicly reported sources describe an economy built on oil, agriculture, and tourism, with oil service companies dominating the employment base. The population surged over the past couple of decades, growth that the city says is now normalizing. The city is car-oriented with no fixed-route bus service, though demand-response transit and Amtrak's Empire Builder are available. Civic amenities include the Williston Area Recreation Center, the public library serving all of Williams County, and proximity to Lake Sakakawea and Theodore Roosevelt National Park's North Unit.
The housing market in Hagan's zip code reflects the boom-era pressures. Typical home values sit above the state benchmark and roughly in line with national figures, with an estimated monthly mortgage payment that exceeds the cost of renting by a meaningful margin. Rent is relatively affordable by income. For families considering buying versus renting while assigned to this school, the rental path appears less strained at present.
The district context matters here. Williston Basin 7 was formed in 2021 by merging two predecessor districts, a consolidation approved by voters the year before. Since then the district has been reworking its facilities and boundaries. A new elementary school, Sloulin Elementary, is scheduled to open in August 2026 after voter approval in 2024. Alongside that opening, the district plans a second phase of attendance boundary changes for all elementary schools. Families living in Hagan's current attendance area should be aware that which school their child attends could shift depending on where the new lines fall.
We looked for data on Title I status, staffing ratios, discipline, course access, and school locale classification, and none was available in the provided records. We also looked for a neighbor comparison set and did not find one. Without those pieces, the picture of Hagan is built largely from its assessment results, its demographic profile, and the broader Williston context. What it shows is a growing, oil-driven community working through the strains of rapid expansion, with an elementary school whose first-year results on a new state test are low and whose attendance boundaries may change in the near future.
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