New Salem-Almont Public School District 49 is a school district headquartered in New Salem, North Dakota. It includes two schools in New Salem: Prairie View Elementary School and New Salem-Almont High School.
The current eight-classroom elementary school opened circa 1963, and the current 17-classroom secondary school, built for $400,000, opened in 1963.[6]
The New Salem district ordered the Judson School, which had 18 students, closed in 1976. The per-student cost in 1976 was $1,400, which was higher than the school district average of $952. Officials of the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction argued that the school was in a bad facility condition and should not continue to operate. By 1976 William Heisler, the Morton County superintendent of schools, was to determine whether the Judson School should reopen.[7]
In 1981 the North Dakota Supreme Court was deliberating whether the district and the Mandan School District could receive funds from coal impact money from the state, with the definition of a "tipple" being a determining factor.[8]
The New Salem district had 399 students in 1999.[9]
By 2005 the Sims School District of Almont sent high school students to New Salem, as the Sims district was now elementary only.[10] In 2008 the Sims district merged into New Salem,[11] and its remaining elementary school closed; in Fall 2008 the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction listed Almont Elementary as being "nonoperating".[12]
In 2017 the high school principal, Michael Gilbertson, applied to be on Bismarck Public Schools's school board.[13]
The district had a school bond vote scheduled for October 1, 2019 as the district wanted to expand the elementary school, including having a special education unit in six new rooms.[14]
