The top reported proficiency rate is 63% in English language arts. The lowest is 50% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Hem Junior/senior High School
HEM Junior/Senior High School sits in Hanna, a small former coal mining town in Carbon County, Wyoming. The school serves grades seven through twelve and is part of Carbon County School District #2. With an enrollment well under a hundred students across six grade levels, this is a very small school in a very small community. The town itself was founded as a coal supply stop for the Union Pacific Railroad, and mining defined its economy for over a century. As the mines closed over the years, Hanna's population steadily declined, and the town has been contracting rather than growing. Publicly reported sources note no major new housing developments or growth projects on the horizon. The school and civic life are woven into the town fabric rather than separated on distant campuses, with Town Hall and the school both along Adams Street and the Hanna Basin Museum nearby in the old Community Hall building.
The student body is predominantly white, with a small representation of Hispanic, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, and multiracial students. Roughly half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on individualized education programs and English learner status was not available, so those populations could not be characterized here.
State assessment results come from Wyoming's WY-TOPP test, and the extremely small grade-level cohorts mean that proficiency figures rest on just a handful of tested students in each subject. For eighth grade, just over half of tested students reached proficiency in math, slightly more than half reached proficiency in science, and a somewhat higher share demonstrated proficiency in English language arts. Seventh grade results were largely suppressed or missing, with only a single student tested in that grade. Participation rates for the eighth grade were in the high eighties to mid-nineties range. Because the tested groups are so small, a single student's performance shifts the picture considerably, and year-to-year comparisons are difficult to interpret. Parents looking at these results should keep the cohort size in mind and may want to ask the school how it tracks individual student growth given the limitations of small-group proficiency data.
Within the comparison set of districts in Carbon County, which includes only two districts, HEM's overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades sits above the midpoint. This is a narrow peer group, so the positioning offers a limited but real local reference point.
Several important data points were absent. No four-year graduation rate was available for the school, and no chronic absenteeism figure was reported. Course access information, including any Advanced Placement, dual credit, or career and technical education offerings, was not provided. Staffing ratios, discipline data, and attendance details were also missing. Title I status was not reported. We looked for the district's strategic priorities or recent parent-relevant changes and found little, so that was left out rather than guessed at.
The housing market in Hanna's zip code is among the most affordable in the state and well below national figures. The typical home value is a fraction of the Wyoming state benchmark and roughly a third of the national benchmark, with an estimated monthly mortgage that remains modest even at current interest rates. No rental market data was available for this location. The price-to-income ratio sits below the national average, suggesting that for families with stable income, homeownership is relatively attainable here. The tradeoff is that the town has limited economic opportunity beyond school district, town government, and county employment, with no major private employers identified in available sources.
For a family considering HEM, the defining characteristics are intimacy and context. Class sizes are small, the school is embedded in a tight-knit rural community, and the surrounding town carries a deep industrial heritage with visible monuments to its mining past. The academic data that exists is reasonable for a small rural school, though the missing graduation rate and program information leaves gaps a parent would want to fill directly with the school. Daily life in Hanna runs on personal vehicles, with no public transit, and the town's long-term population decline shapes what amenities and services are available. This is a place where a family rooted in rural Wyoming life, comfortable with a small-school environment, and looking for affordable housing would find a quiet, historically rich setting, with the caveat that some answers about academic pathways and outcomes will need to come from conversations with the school itself.
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