Original Research by School Decision on Selfridge Elementary School
Selfridge Elementary School sits in a very small rural community on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in Sioux County, North Dakota. The town was founded as a railroad stop along a Milwaukee Road branch line and has been losing population steadily since the 1960s. The railroad was abandoned decades ago, removing a lifeline that once carried grain, livestock, and dairy out of the area. Today the town is primarily residential, surrounded by agricultural prairie and ranchland, with a volunteer fire department, a senior center, several churches, and the school itself serving as civic anchors. The post office, once housed in a building that had been a bank and then a grocery store, was destroyed by fire in September 2024. The nearest larger community is Fort Yates, the Sioux County seat, a short drive south along North Dakota Highway 6. Most daily errands and services require travel there.
The school is a regular public elementary school serving pre-kindergarten through grade five. Its enrollment is very small, consistent with the town's population, with just a handful of students at each grade level. Nearly every student identifies as American Indian or Alaska Native, reflecting the community's location on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which speaks to the level of economic need in the area. Data on individualized education programs and English learner status was not reported, so those pieces of the student support picture are not available here.
Academic results are limited and mixed. The most recent state assessment data available is from the 2024-25 school year for English language arts and mathematics. In ELA, roughly two-fifths of students reached proficiency. In math, fewer than one in five did. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, particularly the math result, which is low. An earlier science assessment from 2017-18, covering grades three through eight, showed proficiency in a range that runs from about half of students to roughly four-fifths, with participation at around four-fifths of eligible students. No trend data is available because each subject has only a single year of reported results, so there is no way to tell from this data whether performance is improving or declining over time.
Because Selfridge Elementary does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report. No information on course offerings, extracurricular programs, staffing levels, attendance, or discipline was available in the data provided. Title I status was not reported either. A family looking into the school would need to ask directly about what supports and enrichment are available, especially given the small staff that a school of this size likely carries.
No housing market data was provided for this location. Given the town's long population decline, absence of new development, and loss of commercial infrastructure, the housing context is likely one of limited turnover and few new options, but the data here does not confirm specifics. No comparison set among neighboring districts was provided either, so the school cannot be positioned against nearby peers on enrollment, demographics, or academic outcomes.
The Selfridge Public School District, of which this school is part, operates two buildings: the elementary school and a high school serving grades seven through twelve. No parent-relevant district changes, such as curriculum updates, property tax shifts, or referendums, surfaced in publicly reported sources for the recent period, so there is little to say about district-level direction. The district appears to function as a small, single-community system tied closely to the town's fortunes.
What a family is looking at here is a very small reservation-town school serving a nearly entirely Native American student body in a community that has been contracting for decades. The strengths are harder to see in the data because so much is missing, but the science result from the earlier assessment year suggests the school has been capable of moving a majority of students to proficiency in at least one subject. The recent ELA and especially math numbers are softer, and the absence of program, staffing, and support data means a parent would need to visit or call the school to understand what is happening in the classroom and what resources exist for children who need extra help. The school's identity is inseparable from the community around it, and that community is small, isolated, and working with limited economic infrastructure.
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