Montezuma Creek School

Montezuma Creek School is a public PK–6 elementary school serving 282 students in the Montezuma Creek community of southeastern Utah, within the San Juan District.

The school serves a high-need student population: 100% of students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch in both 2023–2024 and 2024–2025. Its most encouraging trend is attendance. Chronic absenteeism declined from 65.1% in 2021–2022 to 50.4% in 2024–2025, but it remains well above the district’s 32.3% and Utah’s 23.8%. Academic results are also generally below district and state levels. In 2025–2026, exact proficiency rates included 12.9% in fourth-grade ELA, 9.3% in fourth-grade math, and 14.8% in fourth-grade science. Other results were reported as ranges, including 10–29% in third-grade ELA and 20–39% in third-grade math. Fourth grade appears to be an especially important focus because performance was low across all three tested subjects.

At 15.2 students per teacher, the school’s ratio is higher than nearby Bluff School at 12.6:1 and Aneth Community School at 13:1. Bluff is smaller, about 13.7 miles away, and serves PK–5; it also had lower chronic absenteeism at 34.6% and stronger results in most comparable grades, despite a similarly high rate of economic need. Aneth, about 9.2 miles away, is also much smaller, with 91 students in grades K–6, but comparable academic and attendance data were not provided. Overall, Montezuma Creek ranked 557th of 563 Utah schools in 2025–2026, placing it at the 1st percentile. The clearest priorities are sustaining attendance gains, strengthening foundational reading and math, targeting fourth grade, and examining practices used by nearby schools.