The top reported proficiency rate is 43% in Math. The lowest is 41% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Slack Elementary
Slack Elementary sits on County Road 144 in Ranchester, Wyoming, a small town tucked between the city of Sheridan and the Bighorn Mountains, roughly nine miles south of the Montana border. It is part of Sheridan County School District #1 and serves kindergarten through fifth grade. The school is very small, with total enrollment that fits comfortably in a couple of classrooms, and the student body is predominantly white with a small Hispanic presence. No free-or-reduced-price lunch data, special-education counts, or English-learner figures were available, so the economic and special-population picture here is incomplete.
Ranchester itself is a compact town along U.S. Highway 14, the Bighorn Scenic Byway. Historically a railroad tie loading point built on timber from the Bighorns, it has long served as a stopping point for hunters, snowmobile riders, and travelers heading over the mountains. Businesses cluster along the highway corridor: a motel, a campground, a couple of bars, a coffeehouse and bakery, a brewery, and taxidermy shops serving the hunting trade. Civic life centers on Connor Battlefield State Historic Site, which offers picnic areas, a playground, fishing, and camping within town limits, along with a public library branch and a visitor's center. The town has been growing steadily since the 2020 census, with new commercial establishments like the brewery reflecting that gradual expansion. No major employers were identified in available sources, and no public transit serves the area.
State testing data for Slack Elementary comes from the WY-TOPP assessment. The results are difficult to interpret meaningfully because the testing cohorts are extremely small. In third grade, both math and ELA proficiency rates landed in a middling range, with most of the small group participating. Fifth grade tells a more concerning story: ELA proficiency was moderate, with full participation, but math proficiency was reported in the lowest range band, with none of the tested fifth graders reaching proficiency. Fourth grade results were suppressed or missing entirely because only a single student was tested in that grade, and science results for fourth grade were likewise unavailable for the same reason. This is a common pattern in very small schools, where a single student's performance can swing a grade-level result dramatically or trigger privacy-driven suppression.
Against the comparison set of districts in Sheridan County, Slack Elementary's overall proficiency sits in the bottom quartile. The county's other districts post substantially higher proficiency indexes, with the median well above where Slack currently stands. This positioning should be read with caution given the tiny testing populations, but the gap is wide enough to warrant attention. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, asking how instruction and intervention are structured in a setting this small.
Housing in the Ranchester zip code runs above both the state and national benchmarks for typical home values. The estimated monthly mortgage cost reflects current interest rates in the mid-six-percent range, and the price-to-income ratio suggests that buying here requires a relatively strong household income compared to national norms. Rental data was not available, so the rental picture is missing from this brief.
No discipline, course-access, staffing, or attendance data was provided, and no graduation rate applies because Slack is an elementary school. The district brief for Sheridan County School District #1 turned up little in the way of recently reported parent-relevant changes, so there is nothing to relay on that front.
What emerges is a picture of a very small elementary school in a quiet, growing ranching and recreation town, where individual grade-level results fluctuate with a handful of students and where math outcomes in the upper elementary grades are a soft spot worth asking about. Families drawn to a tight-knit, rural setting with outdoor access and a slower pace may find the community appealing; families prioritizing strong, consistent academic results may want to look closely at the data and talk with school staff before deciding.
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