The top reported proficiency rate is 75% in Math. The lowest is 58% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Riverside Middle/high School
Riverside Middle/High School sits in Basin, a small rural town that serves as the county seat of Big Horn County in northern Wyoming. The school serves grades six through twelve and shares a single building with its middle and high school programs, adjacent to Laura Irwin Elementary on one campus operated by Big Horn County School District #4. The town is compact, with a four-block civic core containing the courthouse, post office, library, and park, and the school campus sits a short distance from that downtown. Basin describes itself as a farmer's town, reflecting the agricultural bent of the surrounding area, where bentonite mining, sugar beet and bean processing, and ranching anchor the local economy. The Big Horn River runs east of the town, and lilac hedges lining the streets earned Basin its nickname, the Lilac City.
The school is small, with modest class sizes across all seven grades. Its student body is predominantly white, with a small Hispanic presence and a handful of students identifying as two or more races. About a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which sits below the national average and reflects the working agricultural community. The school is not a charter or magnet school. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was not reported, so those populations could not be characterized here.
On state assessments through Wyoming's WY-TOPP system, Riverside's middle grades produced some of the strongest results in Big Horn County. Math proficiency was high across sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, with the youngest cohort performing especially well. English language arts results were more varied, with sixth grade strong, eighth grade solid, and seventh grade dipping noticeably. Eighth-grade science proficiency landed in a middling range. Every tested cohort had full participation. These are small cohorts, so a single student's performance shifts the picture considerably, but taken together the school's proficiency index places it at the top of the county's four districts, above every other district's reported average. That is a genuine strength, particularly in mathematics.
State testing data for the high school grades was not included in the available records. Wyoming typically assesses high school students through different grade-specific assessments, and those results may live in a separate reporting cycle. A graduation rate was also not available in this dataset. A parent looking at the upper grades will want to ask the school directly for its graduation and postsecondary outcomes, since the numbers here only tell the middle-grades story. Chronic absenteeism data was similarly absent, as were course access details such as Advanced Placement offerings, dual-credit partnerships, or career and technical education pathways. Staffing levels and discipline data were not reported either.
Basin's housing market is modest by state and national standards. Typical home values in the school's zip code sit well below the Wyoming state benchmark and the national benchmark, though values have been rising at a brisk pace over the past year relative to those broader markets. The estimated monthly mortgage payment on a typical home, assuming a conventional down payment and current rates, is manageable against the area's income profile. No rental market data was available for the area. The town has experienced slow, steady population growth with no major housing developments on the horizon, which suggests the school community is likely to remain tight-knit and stable rather than facing rapid expansion or turnover.
Publicly reported information about recent changes in Big Horn County School District #4 turned up little of note. No referendums, property-tax shifts, curriculum overhauls, or facility closures surfaced in the research, so there is nothing concrete to flag on that front.
For a family considering Riverside, the clearest draw is academic performance in the middle grades that outpaces neighboring districts, set in a very small school where teachers know every student by name. The trade-off is limited visibility into high school outcomes and program breadth in the available data, and a rural setting where options for specialized coursework may be narrower than what a larger town would support. A parent would do well to sit down with the school and ask about what the high school years look like in practice, from graduation rates to college and career pathways, since those pieces are not captured here.
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