Summary:
The White Shield 85 district contains a single high school, White Shield High School, located in Roseglen, ND, serving grades 9 through 12 with a very small enrollment of just 57 students.
White Shield High School presents a unique picture of a small, rural school with high resource allocation but low academic performance. The school spends a substantial $15,173 per student and maintains an exceptionally low student-teacher ratio of 7.5 to 1, which typically supports personalized instruction. However, test proficiency rates are consistently low, with only 20% of students proficient in math, reading, and science across all grades—roughly half the state average. The school's graduation rate of 83.3% is slightly below the state average of 84.2%, suggesting the school is relatively successful at keeping students on track to graduate despite academic challenges. The school ranks in the 13th percentile among North Dakota high schools, though this represents a notable improvement from the 4th percentile in 2019-2020.
Key takeaways for parents include the "small school paradox" where high spending and low class sizes have not yet translated into strong test scores, likely due to challenges related to rural isolation and economic disadvantage (45.61% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch). A specific area of concern is 10th-grade reading proficiency, which at 20% is dramatically lower than the state average of 41%, while 10th-grade math proficiency (20%) is nearly on par with the state (22%). On a positive note, the school's improving state ranking over the past five years indicates that recent efforts may be starting to yield results, even if they haven't yet boosted test scores significantly.
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