Niobrara County School District #1

Niobrara County School District #1 serves 685 students across three schools in Niobrara County, Wyoming: Niobrara County High School (grades 7–12), Lusk Elementary (PK–6), and Lance Creek Elementary (K–6). The most important finding for parents is that math proficiency is well below state levels at both schools with reported scores, particularly in Lusk’s elementary grades.

Niobrara County High School has the strongest state-relative result: its eighth-grade ELA proficiency was 66.7% in 2025–2026, 5.8 percentage points above the state. Its average ELA result across reported grades was 53.8%, just 3.2 points below the state average for those grades. Lusk Elementary stands out for larger shortfalls: its average math proficiency was 39.2% versus 60.4% statewide, and its fifth-grade math result—30.2%—was 30.8 points below the state. Lusk’s sixth-grade math was a relative bright spot at 51.7%, 5.2 points below the state. These grade-level differences matter more than a simple comparison of school averages.

Recent results show mixed progress, with the state-relative gap worsening in 9 of 12 matched school, grade, and subject comparisons from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026. For example, Lusk third-grade math fell from 46.3% to 34.2%, while high school tenth-grade science rose from 32.7% to 41.6%. SchoolDigger ranked the high school 62nd of 81 schools (23rd percentile, one star) and Lusk 138th of 148 (7th percentile, zero stars) in 2025–2026; Lusk’s percentile has declined from 12 over three years, while the high school’s rose from 20 last year. The 2024–2025 student–teacher ratios were 15.2 at the high school, 11.5 at Lusk, and 3 at Lance Creek; free/reduced-lunch eligibility in 2022–2023 was 26.8% at the high school and 42.1% at Lusk. Lance Creek enrolled six students and has no usable school test scores, so its results cannot be compared.