Original Research by School Decision on Anamoose Elementary School
Anamoose Elementary School is a regular public school in the town of Anamoose, North Dakota, serving pre-kindergarten through sixth grade. It is the single elementary school in the Anamoose 14 district, a very small district with one school. The enrollment is small, as one would expect for a rural school in a town of this size, with a single class per grade level. The student body is nearly entirely white, with the smallest representation of Hispanic and multiracial students. About a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on individualized education programs and English learner status was not available, so those populations are not characterized here.
The town of Anamoose sits in McHenry County at the crossing of Highway 52 and Highway 14, roughly sixty miles southeast of Minot. It is a very small rural community in long-term population decline. Publicly reported sources describe a town that once had a much larger business district, including a bowling alley, a theater, three banks, multiple cafes and grocery stores, and a Grand Opera House. Most of those have closed over the decades. What remains is primarily residential, anchored by three churches, a grass greens golf course, and a few surviving community-facing businesses. The town is car-dependent for nearly all needs. Residents travel about sixteen miles to Harvey for medical care at St. Aloisius Medical Facility, and roughly sixty miles to Minot for major shopping and services. No public library or transit system is mentioned in available sources. The town has a Job Development Authority, but no specific economic development projects are documented.
Anamoose Elementary sits in town, which keeps the youngest students close to home. For families, this matters because once students finish sixth grade, they travel about nine miles southeast to Drake for grades seven through twelve, placing secondary education on a separate campus in another community.
State assessment results come from North Dakota's A-PLUS assessment for the 2024-25 school year. The assessment itself underwent a name and cut-score change, so results are not comparable to prior years, and only a single year of data is available. No trend can be drawn. Participation was reported at a level that meets the state's threshold. Third-grade math proficiency landed in a high range, and third-grade ELA proficiency fell in a moderate-to-strong range. These are the grade levels squarely within the school's stated grade band and the clearest reflection of the school's own instruction.
The data also includes seventh- and eighth-grade results attributed to this school, which is puzzling given that the school serves only through sixth grade. Those results are weaker. Seventh-grade math proficiency fell in a moderate range, while seventh-grade ELA, eighth-grade math, and eighth-grade science all landed in low ranges. A parent may want to look into how these upper-grade results relate to the school, since the locale brief indicates those grades attend school in Drake. The overall combined proficiency figures show math in a moderate range and ELA and science below that, but these aggregates blend grade levels that may not all be taught at this school.
No graduation rate applies here, since the school does not serve high school grades. No data was available on discipline, course access, staffing, or attendance. Title I status was not reported. Program offerings were not provided. A comparison fact-set placing this school among its county's districts was not available. The district brief surfaced no recent referendum, curriculum, pedagogy, or property-tax changes, which is consistent with the district's very small size.
What a family gets at Anamoose Elementary is a small, rural, community-rooted elementary school where children attend close to home in their early years. The strongest available signal is in the early grades, where math results are high and reading results are solid. The upper-grade data is harder to interpret because of the grade-band mismatch, and a parent would do well to ask the district directly how those numbers map to where the students are actually taught. The surrounding community offers quiet rural living with limited local services and a reliance on nearby towns for medical care and shopping. The town is in decline, and no major growth or development is on the horizon, so families considering the area should weigh the stability of the school against the economic trajectory of the community.
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