Big Piney Elementary

Big Piney Elementary is a public elementary school serving 145 students in grades K-5 in Big Piney, Wyoming, which is part of the Sublette County School District #9. While the school has consistently ranked in the bottom third of Wyoming elementary schools over the past decade and has a low 1-2 star rating from SchoolDigger, its nearby counterpart, La Barge Elementary, has performed significantly better, ranking between 35 and 50 out of 150 schools and maintaining a 3-4 star rating.

Academically, Big Piney Elementary's proficiency rates in English Language Arts, Math, and Science are consistently below the state and district averages across all grade levels. For example, in the 2024-2025 school year, the school's 3rd grade ELA proficiency was 32% compared to the state average of 53.1%, and its 5th grade Math proficiency was 40% compared to the state average of 55.2%. In contrast, La Barge Elementary's proficiency rates are often significantly higher than Big Piney's and the district/state averages, particularly in ELA and Math.

While Big Piney Elementary has a higher percentage of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, with free/reduced lunch rates ranging from 23.93% to 51.72% over the past few years, the school's performance for subgroups like female, male, and white students is generally lower than the state averages for those groups. However, the school's Hispanic students have performed relatively well, ranking in the top half of Wyoming schools in this subgroup. Despite spending more per student ($20,606 to $22,361) compared to the state average, Big Piney Elementary has a higher student-teacher ratio (8.4 to 9.9) than the nearby La Barge Elementary (7.3), suggesting that the school may not be optimizing its resource allocation to support student learning effectively.