Original Research by School Decision on Freedom Elementary School
Freedom Elementary School sits in West Fargo, one of North Dakota's fastest-growing cities, part of the Fargo-Moorhead metro area. The city traces its roots to meatpacking, with the Armour plant that once anchored the community, but it has since shifted toward residential subdivisions, retail corridors along I-94 and Main Avenue, and a growing technology sector. The city promotes a small-town feel with metropolitan access, and the built environment follows suburban patterns: separated land uses, car-dependent streets, and newer developments pushing westward. The West Fargo Park District maintains an extensive network of parks and bike paths, though walkable street life is limited compared to a traditional grid layout.
The school serves kindergarten through fifth grade and operates within West Fargo Public Schools, a district that has expanded to cover West Fargo, parts of southwestern Fargo, Reile's Acres, Horace, and Harwood. That growth has driven the district to operate multiple elementary schools, three middle schools, and four high schools across a broad service area. Freedom Elementary itself has a sizable enrollment for a single elementary building, with fairly even distribution across grade levels.
The student body is notably diverse for a North Dakota school. White students form the largest group but do not make up a dominant majority. Black students represent a substantial share, and there is a smaller but meaningful Asian population, along with Hispanic and multiracial students. A modest portion of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch. The data did not include IEP or English-learner counts, so those populations could not be characterized here.
On state assessments, Freedom Elementary's results fall in a moderate band. Math proficiency across third, fourth, and fifth grades lands in the middle range, with fourth grade the strongest and fifth grade the softest. English language arts follows a similar pattern, with third and fourth grade ahead of fifth grade, where results dip. Science, tested only in fourth grade, stands out as the school's relative strength, with a larger share of students reaching proficiency than in the other subjects. A parent looking at these results may want to keep in mind that the fifth-grade drop appears across both math and reading, and asking the school how it supports students in that transition year could be worthwhile.
One important caveat about the assessment data: North Dakota adopted a new assessment called ND A-PLUS for the 2024-25 school year, with changed cut scores across all subjects. Because of this, trend comparisons to prior years are not available, so the current results stand alone without a baseline. Whether these proficiency levels represent a change from past performance cannot be determined from the data provided.
Housing in the school's zip code sits above the statewide benchmark for North Dakota but roughly at the national level. Estimated monthly mortgage costs exceed estimated rent by a meaningful margin, which is typical in the current rate environment, and rent relative to income remains affordable. For families considering the area, this means homeownership carries a premium compared to renting, though both options exist in a market that has been appreciating steadily. The broader Fargo metro economy, with employers in technology, retail, and government, supports the housing demand that comes with rapid population growth.
The district brief did not surface specific parent-relevant changes within the past year, and several data sections were thin or absent: no staffing ratios, no attendance figures, no discipline data, no course or program offerings, and no Title I status were reported. The school's locale classification was also not specified. Where information is missing, a parent would do well to ask the school directly.
Freedom Elementary fits families looking for a diverse, moderately performing elementary school in a fast-growing suburban community near Fargo. Its science results are a bright spot, its reading and math results are middling, and its fifth-grade outcomes are the area most worth probing. The surrounding community is expanding, the housing market is active but not extreme by national standards, and the district's growth-driven expansion means families are choosing into a system still scaling to meet demand.
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