Custer High School
Custer · MT · Custer K-12 Schools · Public
Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Grass Range High School → Plevna High School → Highwood High School → Medicine Lake High School → Frazer High School → Dodson High School → Turner High School → Hobson High School →📋 At a glance
- 🎓 AP rigor: Bottom 18% of US high schools
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 14% by test-taker volume
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Custer High School compares for families
What families should know about Custer High School.
- ▸ LocallyMT students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+7 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Grass Range High School, Plevna High School, Highwood High School and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
For Parents
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Get an email when Custer High School's numbers change — new admissions results, enrollment shifts, test scores. A few updates a year, no spam.
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-21Bottom 14% by test-taker volume
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.
👩🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC
Teacher experience & reliability
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
Mixed-income school
Below Title I eligibility threshold (FRPL < 35%)
25-34% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. Below the federal Title I threshold but a meaningful share of the population is income-eligible for free lunch.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.
🏛️ Your state's public flagship
The University of Montana
The in-state tuition gap is the flagship's biggest draw — most in-state families pay far less than the out-of-state sticker. Average net price after aid runs about $16,784/yr. Admission odds depend on your student's GPA and test scores, not which high school they attend.
Source: IPEDS admissions, tuition & enrollment + College Scorecard net price. Flagship = the state's primary public research university.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the most reliable early indicator that a student will leave a school — either by transferring out, dropping out, or matriculating to a charter or private alternative. At this level, today's absentees become next year's enrollment loss and the year-after's revenue loss. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of -15.6%/year, projecting from 2024's 26 students:
A small or specialty program — naive trend math doesn't capture the school's full picture. Read the trend as directional, not predictive.
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Most similar nearby high schools
The schools most like this one — same type, blended on distance and size — and where their enrollment is heading. These are the schools families here weigh against each other.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grass Range High School Grass Range |
Public | 85.6 | 27 | — |
| Plevna High School Plevna |
Public | 146.5 | 27 | — |
| Highwood High School Highwood |
Public | 183.3 | 25 | — |
| Medicine Lake High School Medicine Lake |
Public | 217.8 | 25 | — |
| Frazer High School Frazer |
Public | 151.2 | 24 | — |
| Dodson High School Dodson |
Public | 160.1 | 24 | — |
| Turner High School Turner |
Public | 192.1 | 22 | — |
| Hobson High School Hobson |
Public | 125.5 | 31 | — |