Billings

The two schools in the Billings district serve prekindergarten through grade 12: Billings Elementary School serves PK–8 and Billings High School serves grades 9–12; together, they enroll 71 students. The main concern for families is that proficiency remains well below state results in the shared subjects: in 2025–2026, the two-school averages were 10% in ELA versus 26% statewide, and 5% in math versus 25% statewide.

Billings High School leads the comparison in both shared subjects, though neither school reaches state levels. Its ELA proficiency was 19%, compared with 0% at the elementary school—a 19-point difference—and its math result was 6% versus 4%, a 2-point difference. The elementary school had the lower result in ELA, while both schools were far below the state in math. A notable bright spot is high-school grade 11 science: 25% were proficient, 4 points above the state’s 21%, even though the high school’s all-grades science result was 25% versus 30% statewide. The high school also graduated 90% of students in 2024–2025, compared with 78% statewide.

High-school results improved in three subjects from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026: ELA rose 9 points, science 8, and math 1; U.S. History fell 5 points, from 42% to 37%. Its SchoolDigger statewide percentile rank also improved, from 21 to 36, while the elementary school’s older listed ranks were mixed and ended in 2014–2015. In 2024–2025, the student-teacher ratios were 21.5 at the elementary school and 4.6 at the high school; both reported free/reduced lunch eligible for that year, at 65% and 64%, respectively. These are useful differences to consider, not explanations for achievement. Because enrollment is small and the schools serve different grade spans, their all-grades results are not a direct same-grade comparison.