Summary:
The four schools in Ethan, South Dakota—two elementary schools, a junior high and a high school—enroll 308 students across elementary through high school grades. Three schools have 2025–26 Smarter Balanced results, while the high school reports 11th-grade ACT results. The most important finding is a sharp divide in the latest all-grades results: proficiency ranges from highest to lowest by 53 points in ELA and 56 points in math.
Ethan Elementary - 02 stands out at the top, with 65% ELA and 81% math proficiency—16 and 37 points above state results. Ethan Junior High - 03 also exceeded the state, at 63% in ELA and 67% in math, or 13 and 23 points above. At the bottom, New Elm Spring Colony Elementary - 08 had 13% ELA and 25% math proficiency, 37 and 19 points below the state. Ethan High School - 01 had a positive 11th-grade ACT snapshot, with results 2 points above state in ELA, 7 in math and 10 in science.
Across the three schools with results in both years, the simple average rose 8 points in math from 2024–25 to 2025–26, reaching 58%; ELA declined 2 points to 47%. The junior high’s all-grades results hide a grade-level split: 7th-grade ELA and math were above state, while 8th-grade ELA, math and science were below. SchoolDigger ranked Ethan Elementary in the 96th percentile in 2025–26; Ethan Junior High ranked in the 71st percentile and Ethan High in the 68th, down 14 and 18 percentile points from their first listed years. For context, 2024–25 free/reduced lunch eligible shares were 86% at New Elm and 27% at Ethan Elementary; student–teacher ratios were 8.4 and 14.0, respectively. Because schools serve different grades and Ethan High’s assessment changed between years, the results are not fully comparable across every school and year.
Thank you for your feedback!