The top reported proficiency rate is 62% in Science. The lowest is 24% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Laramie Montessori Charter School
Laramie Montessori Charter School sits in the heart of a Wyoming college town shaped by the University of Wyoming, railroad heritage, and ready access to the Snowy and Laramie ranges. The school serves pre-kindergarten through sixth grade on South Fourth Street, within walking distance of Laramie's revitalized downtown corridor of microbreweries, local shops, and historic commercial architecture. It operates as a charter school under Albany County School District #1, offering families a Montessori-style alternative to the district's conventional elementary campuses.
The school is small by any measure, with a total enrollment that fills a handful of classrooms. Class sizes at the tested grade levels are tiny, with only a few students sitting for the state assessment in each grade. That fact matters for how a parent should read the results: proficiency rates from a handful of test-takers swing widely on a single student's performance, and the numbers say less about a school's quality than they do about a particular cohort. Even so, the results are what the state reported, and a parent may want to look into them with that context in mind.
On the most recent Wyoming state assessment, English language arts was the stronger subject. Proficiency in the upper elementary grades landed in a moderate range, with some grades showing a clear majority of tested students meeting or exceeding the state bar. Third grade was lower, and sixth grade sat in the middle. Reading and language work at Laramie Montessori appears to be a relative bright spot within the school's academic profile.
Mathematics was the softer area. Proficiency across grades three and four fell into the lowest reported band, and grades five and six improved only modestly. The gap between ELA and math performance was wide and consistent across every tested grade. A parent whose child gravitates toward the Montessori approach to hands-on, sequential math materials may want to ask the school directly how it aligns its methods with the state's grade-level expectations and what supports are in place for students who arrive or progress at different paces. Science was tested only in fourth grade and showed a moderate level of proficiency, closer to the school's ELA results than its math results.
No multi-year trend data was available, so there is no way to tell from the provided information whether these results represent a dip, a plateau, or the beginning of an upward shift. Participation was full across every tested grade and subject, which means the results reflect the entire eligible cohort rather than a self-selected subset.
The student body is predominantly white, with a Hispanic presence and a small share of students identifying as two or more races. No other racial or ethnic groups were represented in the reported enrollment. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was not reported, so the school's special-population services and demographics in those categories remain an open question a family would need to raise directly.
Because the school does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report. No chronic absenteeism, discipline, course access, or staffing data was provided. No specific program offerings beyond the Montessori framework were listed. The comparison set for Albany County includes only two districts, which is too small a cohort to produce a meaningful proficiency index or peer benchmark, so the school's results stand on their own rather than against a county peer group.
Laramie itself is a college town where the university campus sits adjacent to the historic downtown, creating a compact center of pedestrian activity, civic life, and commerce. The University of Wyoming is the dominant employer, with Ivinson Memorial Hospital, the Union Pacific Railroad, and county government also providing jobs. Housing in the school's zip code runs somewhat above both the state and national benchmarks for typical home values, while rents remain relatively affordable compared with the estimated local mortgage payment on a median-valued home. That dynamic tends to favor renting families over first-time buyers in this immediate area, though the margin between rent and ownership costs is modest.
The district brief returned no substantive parent-relevant changes, such as bond issues, curriculum shifts, or strategic plan updates, so there is nothing to report on that front.
What a family gets at Laramie Montessori is a small, multi-age charter environment with a Montessori pedagogy in a walkable college-town setting. Reading and language results are the school's academic strength; math is the area that bears the closest attention. The small tested cohorts make every proficiency figure volatile, and a parent weighing this school would do well to visit, ask how the Montessori curriculum maps to state standards, and see the classrooms in action before drawing conclusions from the test data alone.
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