The top reported proficiency rate is 47% in Science. The lowest is 25% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Guernsey-sunrise Elementary
Guernsey-Sunrise Elementary sits in a small Platte County town where the Oregon Trail still looms large in the local identity. The school serves kindergarten through sixth grade as part of Platte County School District #2, sharing its campus footprint with a community built around Camp Guernsey National Guard Base, BNSF railway operations, and a modest industrial park. The town itself is compact, with most destinations reachable on foot, and seasonal life centers on Gordon Davis Park concerts, a summer movie series, and the Annual Duck Daze festival. Guernsey State Park and the historic Oregon Trail Ruts sit just outside town, giving the area a recreational and heritage draw that shapes its character.
The enrollment is small, with roughly a dozen to two dozen students per grade level. The student body is predominantly white, with a Hispanic share and a few students identifying as American Indian or Alaska Native, Black, or two or more races. A majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which signals the economic realities of a town whose population has held essentially flat to slightly declining over recent decades. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not reported, so those figures are absent here rather than absent at the school.
On Wyoming's WY-TOPP assessment, results vary considerably from grade to grade, and the small tested counts mean that a few students moving above or below the proficiency bar can shift a grade's result noticeably. In math, proficiency rates ranged from roughly a fifth of third graders up to nearly half of fourth graders, with fifth and sixth grade landing in between. ELA proficiency was generally lower across the board, with third grade particularly weak, though rates ticked upward moving into the upper elementary grades. Science was tested only in fourth grade, where proficiency landed close to half the class. Participation was full across every tested grade.
Measured against its comparison set, which is relative to districts in Platte County, Guernsey-Sunrise's overall proficiency index sits in the bottom quartile. That positioning reflects the modest ELA results more than anything, though the tiny cohort sizes mean year-to-year volatility is high and a parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand how the scores track over time and what interventions are in place. No multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to say whether these results represent a slide, a plateau, or ordinary fluctuation.
Because this is an elementary school serving only through sixth grade, there is no graduation rate to report, and no chronic absenteeism figure was available. The school does not carry charter or magnet status. Program offerings, course access, staffing details, and discipline data were not provided, so those areas are left out rather than guessed.
Housing in the Guernsey zip code is affordable relative to both Wyoming and national benchmarks, with a typical home value well below the state figure and a modest year-over-year decline. Rent data was not available. For a family considering the area, this means a low-cost housing market in a stable, quiet town with strong outdoor recreation access and a close-knit school where class sizes are inherently small. The tradeoff is that academic proficiency results are uneven and lean low, particularly in early literacy, and the community's economic and population trajectory is flat rather than growing. A parent weighing this school would want to ask directly about reading supports in the early grades and how the district plans to lift ELA outcomes.
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