The top reported proficiency rate is 63% in Science. The lowest is 58% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on White Pine School
White Pine School sits in the small agricultural town of Richmond, in Cache Valley, and serves students from prekindergarten through sixth grade. It is a neighborhood elementary school within the Cache District, not a charter or magnet, and its enrollment of a few hundred children is overwhelmingly white, with a small Hispanic population and even smaller shares of other racial and ethnic groups. About two-fifths of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a rate that places the school in a middle economic range for the area. Data on the share of students with disabilities or who are English learners was not available; a parent may want to ask the school directly about how it supports those populations.
Academically, White Pine performs solidly. On the state’s RISE assessments, proficiency rates in math, English language arts, and science all landed in the high fifties to low sixties percent in the most recent testing years. That puts the school’s overall proficiency across subjects above the midpoint relative to the other districts in Cache County. The ELA result comes from a slightly older testing year than the math and science figures, so the comparison is not perfectly aligned, but the pattern is consistent: this is a school where most students meet state benchmarks. Because it serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and chronic absenteeism information was also missing from the available data.
Richmond itself is a low-density, car-dependent town with a traditional Main Street and a strong agricultural and industrial history. Major employers include a Pepperidge Farm plant, Casper’s Ice Cream, and a meat-processing business, and the town retains a quiet rural character. There are modest civic institutions—a Carnegie Library, parks, a horse arena, and an annual dairy show called Black and White Days. Housing values in the area are above the national median, and the mortgage-to-rent spread suggests that buying is notably more expensive than renting, which may matter for families weighing whether to move into the district. The town’s growth has been slow, driven more by industrial upgrades than by new residential development.
A significant district-level change is coming. In late 2023, Cache Valley voters approved a bond to build two new middle schools and a new elementary school, convert one existing middle school into an elementary school, and make safety upgrades across all schools. A stated goal of the bond is to move sixth grade out of elementary schools and back into a middle school setting. For families at White Pine, that means the current PK-6 configuration will likely shift within a few years, sending sixth graders to a new or reconfigured middle school. This is the kind of structural change that can affect daily logistics, peer groups, and the elementary experience for children now in the lower grades.
White Pine School offers a small-town elementary experience with above-average academic results for the county, set in a community that is still rural but has visible industrial and commercial activity. The upcoming grade reconfiguration is a practical consideration for any parent choosing this school, especially those with children approaching fifth or sixth grade. The school’s strengths are grounded in solid proficiency, a manageable size, and a district that is investing in facilities, though some key support data—special education and English learner counts, behavior and attendance patterns—are not publicly summarized here and would be worth exploring directly with the school.
See more original research from School Decision →