Parkston School District 33-3

Parkston School District 33-3 has six schools serving elementary-, middle- and high-school students, with reported enrollment totaling 561; the list includes two Elm Spring Colony schools and Our Home. The most comparable recent elementary and middle school results show a clear divide: Parkston Elementary - 02 and Parkston Middle School - 05 scored above the state in both ELA and math, while both colony schools scored below it.

Parkston Elementary - 02 led the four elementary and middle schools with reported scores, at 59% in ELA and 64% in math; Parkston Middle School - 05 was close behind at 58% and 64%. Their ELA results were 10 and 9 points above the state, respectively, and their math results were 21 and 20 points above. At the bottom, New Elm Spring Colony Elementary - 08 scored 13% in ELA and 25% in math—37 and 19 points below the state—while Old Elm Spring Colony Elementary - 03 scored 35% in both subjects. Parkston High School - 01 also stands out: its 11th-grade ACT results exceeded state results by 7 points in ELA, 13 in math and 19 in science, and its 95% graduation rate was 7 points above the state.

Recent gains favor Parkston Middle School - 05, whose scores rose 10 points in ELA and 17 in math from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026; Parkston Elementary - 02 gained 5 points in ELA but fell 2 in math. SchoolDigger’s percentile rank for the middle school rose 20 points in the latest year, while the high school’s fell 8 points from its prior-year peak. As context, free/reduced lunch eligible figures for 2024–2025 ranged from 24% at the middle school to 90% at Old Elm; New Elm had the lowest student-teacher ratio, 8.4, despite the lowest scores. These are observations, not explanations of achievement; school grade spans differ, and small cohorts can make results sensitive to year-to-year changes.