Jones County Elementary - 02

Jones County Elementary - 02 in Murdo, South Dakota, serves 74 students in kindergarten through grade 5 in an area with no other schools within 20 miles. Its overall results are strong, but the most important caution is the sharp split in ELA between third grade, where 79% were proficient, and fourth grade, where 43% were proficient.

Across all grades in 2025–2026, proficiency was above both the district and state in all three reported subjects: ELA was 70%, compared with 63% in the district and 49% statewide; math was 73%, versus 63% and 44%; and science was 92%, versus 83% and 42%. Science stands out against the state, while math had the largest district advantage: 9.5 points, compared with 8.8 points in science and 7 points in ELA. The grade-level ELA picture is less even: third grade was 35 points above the state rate, while fourth grade was 5 points below it. There are no nearby schools to compare, so local peer rankings are not available.

Results have shifted over time: from 2022–2023 to 2025–2026, ELA rose 12 points, while math fell 2 points; the school’s ELA lead over the state widened by 13 points, while its math lead narrowed by 4. SchoolDigger ranks the school 49th of 203 South Dakota schools, at the 76th percentile and 4 stars, down 19 percentile points from the previous year. Its 2024–2025 student-teacher ratio was 8.8, and 60% of students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch that year—context, not an explanation for test results. A notable subgroup difference is that SchoolDigger’s 2024–2025 effectiveness ranking for Special Education Students was at the 73rd percentile, compared with the school’s overall 95th percentile that year.