The top reported proficiency rate is 0% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Medicine Valley Jr-sr High School
MedicineValley Jr-Sr High School is the sole secondary school of Medicine Valley Public Schools, serving grades seven through twelve in the small rural town of Curtis, Nebraska. Curtis sits in Frontier County in the Medicine Creek Valley, roughly equidistant from McCook, North Platte, and Gothenburg. The school and the town are tightly woven together: the school buildings, the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture campus, and most civic life sit within a compact footprint that covers only a few square miles.
Enrollment is small, as one would expect in a town of this size. The student body is predominantly white, with a smaller but present share of Hispanic students and very small numbers of Black, American Indian, and multiracial students. Nearly half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a rate that reflects the economic profile of the community.
The state testing results, which cover only grades seven and eight in math, English language arts, and science, show no students scoring proficient in any of those subjects in the most recent assessment cycle. This is a very low result. For a parent considering the school, this is a significant soft spot that warrants a direct conversation with the school about instruction, intervention, and how the school supports academic growth. It is also important to note that these tests do not cover the high school grades; there is no publicly available test-based measure of performance for grades nine through twelve from this data. The school’s graduation rate was not reported in the data provided, so a parent would need to ask the school directly for that figure and for any longitudinal tracking of post-secondary outcomes.
Curtis itself is a very small, stable but not growing community. The population has been essentially flat and is projected to decline slightly in the coming years. A notable share of housing units sit vacant, and the median home value is well below state and national averages. In 2021 the town offered a program that gave free land to anyone who built a house, plus financial incentives for enrolling children in the public school system, an explicit attempt to attract new families. On the other hand, the local medical clinic, operated by McCook Community Hospital, announced its closure in 2025, representing a loss of a local service.
The town does have some recreational assets: a nine-hole golf course, a fishing pond, a swimming pool, and walking trails. It brands itself as an annual Easter pageant town. The Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture, a two-year institution, sits right in town and adds a small college presence. But the overall economic base is thin, with only a few dozen business establishments, and the major employers are the college, the school district, and agriculture.
For a family, Medicine Valley Jr-Sr High School offers a small, rural educational setting where a student would know almost everyone. The academic picture from the available state tests is weak, and key data on high school performance and graduation are not part of what was available for this profile. The community is actively looking for new residents and offers very affordable housing, but it is also contracting in some services. Any family considering this school would want a thorough conversation with the principal and a visit to see how the school addresses its academic challenges firsthand.
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