Saco Elementary

The Saco Elementary district in Montana is home to two schools: Saco School, an elementary school, and Saco 7-8, a middle school. While the middle school has consistently ranked among the top performers in the state, the elementary school has struggled to maintain a strong ranking, highlighting a stark contrast in academic performance between the two institutions.

The standout school in this data set is Saco 7-8, the middle school, which has received high rankings and ratings from SchoolDigger, including a 10th place ranking out of 200 Montana middle schools in the 2020-2021 school year. In contrast, Saco School, the elementary school, has ranked as low as 258th out of 329 elementary schools in the state, with a 2-star rating from SchoolDigger.

The data also reveals some interesting differences between the two schools. Saco School has a more diverse student population, with 6.45% Hispanic students and 3.23% students of two or more races, while Saco 7-8 is 100% white. Additionally, the middle school has a smaller student-teacher ratio of 3.9, compared to 7.2 at the elementary school. Despite these differences, both schools report the same per-student spending of $19,123 for the 2018-2019 school year, which is nearly double the national average, suggesting a significant investment in these small, rural educational institutions.