Red Shirt School - 04

Red Shirt School - 04 is an elementary school located in Hermosa, South Dakota, serving grades PK-8 with a total enrollment of 49 students. The school is part of the Oglala Lakota County 65-1 school district, which is ranked 146 out of 147 districts in the state and has a 0-star rating from SchoolDigger. Red Shirt School - 04 has consistently ranked in the bottom 10-15% of South Dakota elementary schools over the past several years, with a 0-star rating from SchoolDigger.

Red Shirt School - 04 has extremely low academic performance across all grade levels and subject areas, with 0% proficiency rates in English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science for all grades in the 2024-2025 school year. The school also has alarmingly high chronic absenteeism rates, ranging from 20.2% to 64.2% over the past few years. When analyzing the performance of specific student subgroups, Red Shirt School - 04 ranks in the bottom 10-20% of South Dakota elementary schools for female students, male students, special education students, and low socioeconomic status students. Despite the high per-student spending and variability in student-teacher ratios, the school has not shown any meaningful improvement in its academic performance or other key metrics over the past several years.

In comparison, the nearest comparable school, Hermosa Elementary - 04, which is part of the Custer School District 16-1, significantly outperforms Red Shirt School - 04 across all academic measures, with proficiency rates that are 50-60 percentage points higher in English Language Arts and Mathematics. This suggests that the challenges faced by Red Shirt School - 04 may be deeply rooted and require a targeted, multi-faceted intervention strategy to drive meaningful and sustainable improvements.