Belle Fourche School District 09-1

The four schools in Belle Fourche School District 09-1 include two elementary schools, one middle school and one high school, serving students from kindergarten through high school. Enrollment ranges from 89 at North Park Elementary to 414 at Belle Fourche Middle School. The clearest academic contrast in the 2025–2026 all-grades results is in English language arts (ELA): the middle school scored 55%, while South Park Elementary scored 36%, a 19-point difference.

Belle Fourche Middle School stands out in ELA and science, scoring 55% and 46%, respectively, compared with state results of 49% and 42%. Its math score was 43%, just below the state’s 44%. South Park had the stronger all-grades math result, at 48% versus 44% statewide, but its ELA score of 36% was 13 points below the state. Belle Fourche High School had a strong 2025–2026 graduation rate of 95%, 7 points above the state, while its ELA, math and science results were below state levels. No test scores are supplied for North Park.

Recent results show different patterns: the middle school improved its position relative to the state in all three tested subjects from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, while South Park’s ELA gap widened from 8 to 13 points below the state and its math advantage grew from 3 to 4 points. SchoolDigger gives the middle school 3 stars and the high school and South Park 1 star; its rankings also moved in different directions, rising 23 percentile points for the middle school and falling 26 for the high school from 2023–2024 to 2025–2026, while South Park was unchanged. In 2024–2025, free/reduced lunch eligible shares were highest at South Park (54%) and lowest at the high school (32%); student-teacher ratios were 11.5 at South Park, 13.5 at the middle school and 14.5 at the high school. The schools serve different grades, and the high school’s assessment changed between the reported years, so results are not all directly comparable.