The top reported proficiency rate is 55% in Math. The lowest is 31% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on 4-j Elementary School
4-J Elementary School sits on Highway 50A in Gillette, serving kindergarten through sixth grade as part of Campbell County School District #1. It is a very small school by any measure, with only a handful of students per grade level. The total enrollment is roughly three dozen children, which means a family here is choosing an intimate setting where each grade cohort can fit around a single table. The student body is entirely white, and the share of children qualifying for free or reduced-price meals is low compared with most public schools. Data on English learners and special-education enrollment was not reported, so those populations cannot be characterized here.
Because the school is so small, state assessment results are difficult to read with confidence. Gillette's third and fourth graders took the WY-TOPP in math, ELA, and science, but with only one tested student in each of those grades, proficiency rates were suppressed and are not available. Fifth and sixth grade each had a small group of test-takers, and the results swing widely: math proficiency was moderate in fifth grade and stronger in sixth, while ELA proficiency was lower in both grades. With cohorts this small, a single child moving in or out can shift a rate dramatically, so these numbers say more about individual performance in a given year than about a stable schoolwide pattern. A parent looking at these results may want to talk with the school about how it tracks progress across such tiny cohorts, since the published figures alone are too thin to support firm conclusions.
The school has no graduation rate, no chronic-absenteeism figure, and no reported course-access or staffing data, all of which is expected for an elementary program of this size and grade band. Discipline and civil-rights data were also absent. The comparison fact-set attempts to position the school among Campbell County districts, but the county cohort is too small to produce a meaningful proficiency index, and graduation does not apply to this grade range. So there is no reliable peer benchmark to offer.
Gillette itself is a car-oriented Western city shaped by the energy industry. Publicly reported sources describe it as the county seat and the self-styled "Energy Capital of the Nation," sitting in the Powder River Basin amid coal, oil, and coalbed methane development. The downtown has the Campbell County Courthouse and a handful of local businesses, but the built environment is spread out and designed around driving. Major civic and educational facilities, including the CAM-PLEX event center and Gillette College, sit on separated campuses rather than in a walkable core. The broader economy has been affected by the decline in coal use nationally, and local officials have been looking toward diversification, which gives the community a transitional feel.
The housing market around the school reflects that transition. Typical home values in the area's zip code run near the state and national medians, but they have softened over the past year. Renting is substantially cheaper than carrying a mortgage at current rates, which may appeal to families who are new to the area or unsure about putting down roots while the local economy adjusts. The price-to-income ratio sits above four, meaning a typical home costs roughly four times a typical household's annual income, so affordability is moderate but not generous.
What 4-J offers is a very small, homogeneous, rural-elementary environment on the edge of an energy town whose economic future is in flux. The academic picture is hard to judge from published data because the tested cohorts are so small that the numbers are volatile or suppressed entirely. Families drawn to a close-knit setting where their child will be known by name may find the appeal obvious, but they should plan to ask the school directly about instructional grouping, assessment trends over time, and how the district supports such a small site, since the public data alone does not provide enough signal to evaluate academic quality with confidence.
See more original research from School Decision →