Rapid City
Rapid City-Sioux Falls Attendance Gap Reached a Four-Year High After Narrowing
Rapid City Area ended 2025 with a 31.3% chronic-absence rate, compared with 24.6% in Sioux Falls. The 6.7-percentage-point difference was the widest between South Dakota's two largest districts in the...
South Dakota Has 1.10 Kindergartners for Every Senior
South Dakota's 12th grade class just set a record. At 9,964 students, the class of 2025 is the largest in the state's data history, 14.5% bigger than the 8,703 seniors in 2008-09. In any other context...
14,000 Native Students, 17 Years of Standing Still
South Dakota enrolled 14,477 Native American students in 2008. In 2025, the number was 14,283. That is 194 fewer students over 17 years, a decline of 1.3%.
Two-Thirds of South Dakota Districts Enroll Fewer Than 500 Students
> Correction (August 20, 2026): An earlier version used stale enrollment values for Harrisburg and several matched-tier totals. The evidence package was rebuilt from the current South Dakota Departmen...
South Dakota Schools Lost 13 Points of White Share in 17 Years
In the 2007-08 school year, roughly 82 of every 100 students in South Dakota's public schools were white. By 2024-25, that figure had fallen to 69. The 13.2 percentage-point drop did not happen becaus...
South Dakota's Hidden Pre-K System Serves 3,284 Children With Zero State Dollars
In 2006, South Dakota reported 1,280 pre-kindergarten students across 110 school districts. By 2025, that number had climbed to 3,284, a 156.6% increase that makes PK one of the fastest-growing segmen...
Harrisburg Has Never Lost a Student. Now What?
Correction (March 15, 2026): An earlier version of this article stated that Brandon Valley grew 69.5% since 2007. The correct figure is 72.5%. The error has been corrected.
27 South Dakota Districts Hit Record Lows
Rapid City Area Schools, the second-largest district in South Dakota, enrolled 12,040 students in 2024-25. That is the lowest figure in the district's recorded history, down 13.9% from its 2012 peak o...
South Dakota Gained Students During COVID. Now the Bill Is Coming Due.
Most states lost students during the pandemic. South Dakota added them.
Kindergarten Down 9% in Three Years
In 2013, South Dakota enrolled 141 kindergartners for every 100 high school seniors. The incoming class was so much larger than the outgoing one that total enrollment grew every year for more than a d...
Rapid City Hits Its Lowest Enrollment on Record
In the 2024-25 school year, South Dakota's statewide enrollment stood 6.9% higher than it did 13 years ago. Its second-largest school district moved in the opposite direction. Rapid City Area Schools ...
South Dakota's 13-Year Growth Streak Is Over
Correction (March 15, 2026): An earlier version of this article stated Sioux Falls had shed 283 students since its 2023 peak of 25,228; the 283 figure was actually the loss since 2022, not the 2023 pe...
South Dakota Publishes 2024-25 Enrollment Data
For 12 consecutive years, South Dakota public schools grew. Every single year, from 2008 through 2019, the state added students — 17,058 in total, a 13.9% increase powered by Sioux Falls metro housing...