Little Snake River Valley School, Baggs WY

Original Research by School Decision on Little Snake River Valley School

Little Snake River Valley School is a single K-through-12 campus serving the town of Baggs and the surrounding Little Snake River Valley in Carbon County, Wyoming. It is part of Carbon County School District #1 and operates as a traditional public school. The enrollment is small, with roughly a dozen or so students per grade spread across kindergarten through senior year. This is a rural, consolidated community school where a child can attend from their first day of kindergarten through high school graduation without changing buildings.

On state assessments, the school shows solid proficiency in math and English language arts across the tested elementary and middle grades. Math proficiency is consistently strong, with most grades showing a clear majority of students meeting or exceeding the state bar, and the middle grades performing especially well. English language arts results are more varied, with one early elementary grade showing fewer than half of tested students proficient, while upper elementary and middle grades reach comfortably above that level. Science, tested in two grades, lands in a similar middle range. Taken together, the school's overall proficiency sits at the top among districts in Carbon County, which is a small comparison set. Because the testing groups are very small, year-to-year results can swing sharply; a single student's performance moves the picture. That is the nature of a tiny rural school and does not necessarily reflect instability in teaching quality.

The peer environment is predominantly white, with a meaningful Hispanic presence and very few students from other racial or ethnic backgrounds. About a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which is below the level many rural schools see and suggests a community with some economic variation rather than concentrated poverty. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was not reported, so those populations cannot be characterized here. A parent with questions about special education services or language support would want to ask the school directly.

Baggs itself is a ranching community just a few miles north of the Colorado line, set in a secluded valley between the Sierra Madre Mountains and the Red Desert. The built environment is sparse: a single highway serves as main street, with a handful of historic structures and modest homes. There is no distinct downtown commercial district, and no public transit. Civic life centers on a library branch, a museum outpost, and outdoor recreation in the nearby Medicine Bow National Forest. The town has seen minimal population change and no major housing or commercial development surfaced in public sources. Fiber-optic service has reached the valley, which stands out for a community this remote. Regional destinations such as Rawlins and Craig, Colorado are long drives, so daily life is self-contained. Housing values and rents were not available in the data provided, so a family evaluating the cost of living would need to look to local listings.

The school sits as a separated campus rather than being embedded in any town core. No information on specific academic programs, Advanced Placement, career pathways, or extracurricular offerings was available. Staffing levels, attendance patterns, discipline data, and chronic absenteeism rates were also absent. A graduation rate was not reported for this school in the data. Given the small high school cohort, a parent would want to ask directly about diploma pathways, post-graduation plans, and what the upper grades look like in practice.

What this school offers is continuity and community. A child here grows up among the same classmates year after year, in a valley where ranching and outdoor life define the culture. The academic results, though drawn from tiny testing groups, are genuinely strong relative to the county. The trade-off is limited program breadth and a setting where families handle most of what a larger town would provide through proximity and scale. For a family rooted in or drawn to this valley, the school is a fitting anchor.

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Academic performance

State test results and graduation outcomes.

Graduation rate (ACGR)

>=50%Cohort of 13 students · Class of 2021

The federal source publishes a banded range instead of an exact rate when the graduating cohort is small enough that an exact number could risk identifying individual students.

How this school compares to all schools in this state

Each dot is one school’s SY 2020-21 graduation rate, binned by integer rate. Taller columns mean more schools at that rate. This school is highlighted.

89 schools plotted. 4 additional schools' rates are federally suppressed and not shown. Data: EDFacts SY 2020-21.

Math

Grade 379%

School 79% · District 50% · ▲ 29 pts above district

▲ 19 pts above state median

Grade 471%

School 71% · District 67% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median

Grade 560%

School 60% · District 65% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▲ 2 pts above state median

Grade 658%

School 58% · District 48% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 5 pts above state median

Grade 783%

School 83% · District 37% · ▲ 46 pts above district

▲ 31 pts above state median

Grade 865%

School 65% · District 40% · ▲ 25 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 342%

School 42% · District 34% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▼ 10 pts below state median

Grade 464%

School 64% · District 35% · ▲ 29 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median

Grade 567%

School 67% · District 52% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median

Grade 675%

School 75% · District 55% · ▲ 20 pts above district

▲ 16 pts above state median

Grade 783%

School 83% · District 53% · ▲ 30 pts above district

▲ 23 pts above state median

Grade 870%

School 70% · District 58% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median

Science

Grade 471%

School 71% · District 48% · ▲ 23 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median

Grade 861%

School 61% · District 40% · ▲ 21 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median

This schoolCarbon County School District #1, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 8Lower-income56%Higher-income79%23 pp gap