Original Research by School Decision on Big Water High
Big Water High sits in a remote corner of southern Utah, a small school in a very small town shaped by the desert and the dam that built it. The town of Big Water began as Glen Canyon City, a 1950s construction camp for workers on the Glen Canyon Dam. Today it functions partly as a residential community and partly as a tourism gateway to Lake Powell, Wahweap Marina, and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The town bills itself as “Dinosaur Town” and hosts a paleontology museum along US-89, but there is no traditional downtown or walkable core. The nearest full-service town, Page, Arizona, is a short drive south; Kanab is farther west. This is a car-dependent, low-density place with a tourism-and-recreation economy and no major employers documented beyond municipal government and the visitor center.
The school itself is one of the smallest secondary schools one might encounter. It serves grades seven through twelve with an enrollment that numbers in the tens. The peer environment is tiny; every student knows every other student, and the school likely functions as a single community across the grade span. Demographically, the student body is predominantly White, with a notable Native American presence and a small Hispanic share. A moderate share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, roughly in line with the economic mix of a rural tourism town.
State testing data is suppressed across all subjects and grades for which testing is reported. That suppression is standard practice when the tested population is too small to report reliably, and it means there is no public proficiency data for Big Water High. No graduation rate is available either, nor any data on chronic absenteeism, discipline, course access, or staffing. The absence of these measures is not unusual for a school of this size, but a parent should be aware that the usual public indicators of academic performance and student support are simply not published here. There is only one school district in Kane County, so there is no meaningful comparison to neighboring districts within the county.
Housing values in the Big Water area are somewhat above the national typical, reflecting the area’s appeal as a resort-adjacent location near Lake Powell and national monuments. The town’s population has fluctuated modestly over recent decades, with slow overall growth. No major new housing developments were identified, and the town’s remote location has limited large-scale expansion. A past attempt to secede from Kane County to form a new county focused on Lake Powell development was defeated.
For families considering Big Water High, the central reality is its size and isolation. The school offers a close-knit, rural setting where every teacher knows every student, but a parent will find little academic performance data to evaluate publicly. The lack of test results, graduation rates, and course-access listings means that direct inquiry with the school and district is essential to understand pathways, support services, and postsecondary options. The small student body may limit course offerings and extracurricular breadth, though the district may provide resources across its schools. The town’s remote character and car-dependent lifestyle will suit families who value quiet desert surroundings and proximity to Lake Powell recreation, but those seeking a wide array of academic programs or a bustling community will need to look farther.
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