Poplar School

Poplar School is an elementary school located in Poplar, Montana, serving grades PK-4 with a total enrollment of 329 students. The school is part of the Poplar Elementary District, which is ranked 360 out of 387 districts in the state and has a 0-star rating from SchoolDigger. Poplar School has consistently ranked in the bottom 10-15% of Montana elementary schools over the past decade, with its highest ranking being 183 out of 190 in 2008-2009.

Poplar School's academic performance is significantly below the state average. In the 2024-2025 school year, only 11.43% of students were proficient or better in English Language Arts, compared to the state average of 43.09%. In Mathematics, the proficiency rate was just 6.47%, compared to the state average of 36.77%. This trend has persisted over the years, with Poplar School consistently scoring well below the state and district averages in both reading and math. However, the school has a relatively low student-teacher ratio, ranging from 8.8 to 10.4 students per teacher over the past few years, and its spending per student is $14,787, which is higher than the state average.

Interestingly, the nearby Frontier School and Barbara Gilligan School, while still performing below the state average, have significantly better academic outcomes than Poplar School. For example, in the 2024-2025 school year, Frontier School had 27.94% of students proficient or better in English Language Arts, and Barbara Gilligan School had 32.43% proficient or better in the same subject. This suggests that there may be factors beyond just funding and student-teacher ratios that contribute to the academic performance of these schools.