Highmore Junior High - 03

Highmore Junior High - 03 is a public middle school located in Highmore, South Dakota, serving grades 7-8 with a total enrollment of 43 students. The school is part of the Highmore-Harrold 34-2 school district, which is ranked 30th out of 147 districts in the state and has a 4-star rating from SchoolDigger.

Highmore Junior High - 03 consistently outperforms the state and district averages in Smarter Balanced Assessments for both English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics across all grades. In the 2024-2025 school year, the school's ELA proficiency rate for all grades was 62.86%, compared to 50.93% for the state and 51.85% for the district. Similarly, the school's Mathematics proficiency rate for all grades was 60%, compared to 43.49% for the state and 50% for the district. The school's performance is particularly strong in 7th grade, where the ELA and Mathematics proficiency rates were 86.67% and 73.33%, respectively, significantly higher than the state and district averages.

While the school's overall academic performance is exceptional, it has experienced fluctuations in its chronic absenteeism rates, ranging from 12.5% to 20.8% over the past few years, which are generally higher than the state and district averages. Additionally, the school's performance for Special Education students and Low Socio-Economic Status students is relatively weaker, ranking 148th and 101st out of 181 and 187 South Dakota middle schools, respectively, in the 2024-2025 school year. The school's high per-student spending, ranging from $11,107 to $12,873 over the past few years, and low student-teacher ratio, from 9.9 to 12.5 students per teacher, suggest that the school is investing significant resources in its educational program, which may contribute to its strong academic performance.