Original Research by School Decision on Edwin Loe Elementary School
Edwin Loe Elementary School sits in New Town, North Dakota, the administrative center of the Fort Berthold Reservation and home largely to members of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara nations, known together as the Three Affiliated Tribes. The town grew from a relocation site for communities flooded by the creation of Lake Sakakawea and later swelled during the Bakken oil boom, which brought an influx of workers and rapid construction of trailers and vinyl housing alongside the original mid-century plat. Today the town serves as a regional service hub where surrounding residents come for groceries and supplies, with the oil industry, tribal government, the Four Bears Casino, and Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College as the primary employers. State Highway 23 runs through as the main road, and there is no public transit. Cultural institutions such as the Three Affiliated Tribes Museum and the MHA Interpretive Center provide community gathering points.
The school is a regular public elementary serving pre-kindergarten through sixth grade, part of New Town School District #1. It is a sizable elementary for a rural reservation town, with a relatively even distribution across the early grades and a smaller sixth-grade cohort. The student body is predominantly American Indian and Alaska Native, reflecting the surrounding community, with small numbers of Asian, Hispanic, white, and multiracial students. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The district has recently invested in facilities, with publicly reported construction spending in the 2021-2022 fiscal year that represents a meaningful infrastructure commitment for a small rural district.
On the most recent North Dakota A-PLUS assessments, administered in the 2024-25 school year, the school's results were mixed across grades and subjects. In math, third-grade proficiency landed in a low-to-moderate range, fourth grade came in lower, and fifth grade was quite low, while sixth grade was the strongest showing, landing in a moderate range. English language arts was more consistent across grades, with proficiency hovering in a similar band from third through sixth grade, fifth grade being the relative bright spot. Science was assessed only in fourth grade, where proficiency was low. Across all tested grades combined, the school's overall proficiency sat at roughly a third in English language arts, somewhat below that in math, and lower still in science. Participation was strong, with nearly all students tested.
These results are a single-year snapshot. The state changed its assessment name and cut scores for this testing cycle, which means year-over-year trend comparisons are not available, and the figures cannot be reliably compared to prior years. A parent may want to ask the school how instruction is responding to these results, particularly in the middle elementary grades where math proficiency was weakest.
Several data points that would help round out the picture were not available. Individualized education program rates and English learner rates were not reported. Discipline data, course access details, staffing ratios, and attendance figures were not provided. Program offerings such as gifted services, counseling, or extracurriculars were not surfaced in the available data. Civil rights data was absent as well. These gaps are common for small rural schools and do not by themselves indicate a problem, but they do mean a family would need to go directly to the school for information on special education services, language support, and student support programming.
No graduation rate applies here, as the school does not serve high school grades. No neighbor comparison or county-level positioning was provided, so the school cannot be placed against nearby peers in this account.
What the available evidence does show is a school serving a tight-knit Native American community on the Fort Berthold Reservation, in a town shaped by displacement, oil economics, and tribal governance. The academic results are below where most families would want them, with real variation between grades and subjects, and the newest state assessment framework makes it hard to read direction. Families considering Edwin Loe will likely want to talk with school leadership about how the school supports students from pre-kindergarten onward, what interventions are in place for the grades showing the lowest proficiency, and how the school's recent facilities investment translates into the day-to-day classroom experience.
See more original research from School Decision →