Summary:
Council, Idaho, is a small rural community served by two public schools within the Council District: Council Elementary School (grades PK-6, 165 students) and Council Junior/Senior High School (grades 7-12, 117 students). The district is rated 3 stars and ranks 36th out of 101 Idaho districts, placing it slightly above the state median, though that overall rating masks a wide gap between its two schools.
The clear standout is Council Junior/Senior High School, which ranks 10th out of 122 Idaho high schools in 2025-2026 with a 5-star rating and 92nd percentile performance. This is a dramatic turnaround from 2022-2023, when it ranked dead last in the state (106th out of 106) with a 0-star rating. The high school posts exceptional End-of-Course exam scores — 62.5% proficiency in both math and science, compared to state averages of 33.1% and 41.2% respectively. By contrast, Council Elementary School ranks in the 16th percentile with a 1-star rating, though it improved from the 5th percentile the previous year. Its 3rd-grade math proficiency of 54.2% exceeds the state average, but early-grade ELA proficiency is very low.
Elementary English Language Arts is the district's biggest red flag: only 24.7% of elementary students are proficient in ELA, less than half the state average of 54.0%. Math improved strongly year-over-year at both schools, but secondary ELA actually declined. The high school benefits from a much lower student-teacher ratio (11.5 vs. 19.5) and higher per-pupil spending ($12,736 vs. $8,678). Chronic absenteeism at the district level is a promising 5.6%, well below the state's 13.8%, though earlier school-level data was much higher. The district's biggest opportunity is figuring out what is working at the high school and replicating those conditions at the elementary level.
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