Compiled from official source data by PlainSchools.
5 public K-12 schools in Parkston from NCES Common Core of Data: enrollment, grade span, demographics, and Civil Rights Data Collection statistics for every active campus.
According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Parkston has more public-school enrollment than 1% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Parkston Elementary - 02 enrolls 50.4% of Parkston's public-school students. That is enough concentration for one institution to pull the citywide enrollment, staffing, and Resource Index averages toward its own profile. The smaller campuses below should therefore be compared directly rather than inferred from the headline mean; their grade configurations and program footprints can be materially different even inside the same district.
Combined-grade campuses shape the local portfolio
3 of Parkston's 5 listed schools use NCES's combined or “other” grade-level classification. Citywide averages therefore blend campuses serving unusually broad or nonstandard grade spans with conventional elementary, middle, and high schools. Grade configuration is a first-order comparison here, not a minor label.
A small portfolio contains radically different campus scales
Parkston lists only 5 schools, yet reported enrollment runs from 27 to 272 students, a 10-fold range. In a portfolio this compact, the smallest record may be a specialized or nonstandard setting rather than a miniature version of the largest campus. That distinction affects how ratios and program fields should be read. Compare similarly configured grade levels first; combining the extremes into one city average conceals more than it explains.
City enrollment
Top 99%
School count
Top 99%
Resource Index average
90th percentile
Teacher staffing
82nd percentile
Parkston Elementary - 02 accounts for 50.4% of all Parkston public-school enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Parkston a distant remainder — means Parkston-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the largest entity. Grade level: Combined. The share measures enrollment concentration only; it does not establish how districts allocate programs, capital, or staff. Because it contains a majority of the affected population, enrollment-weighted aggregates will sit closer to this entity's reported fields than to those of smaller peers; an unweighted entity count answers a different question.
Parkston school enrollment varies 10× across entities
Parkston school enrollment ranges from 27 students (lowest) to 272 students (highest), a spread of 245 students. That spread reflects typical urban portfolio variation between specialty programs and large neighbourhood schools. Per-school staffing and program breadth can differ sharply at opposite ends of that enrollment range, so the city average should not be treated as a typical campus.
Parkston operates one school district — a single-district system
Parkston's listed schools share one district boundary, budget authority, and reporting chain. That makes citywide and districtwide governance easier to compare, but it does not make individual campuses uniform: grade configuration, staffing, programs, and student need can still vary materially within the same school district.
Parkston student-teacher ratio is 12.7:1 — low (typically associated with smaller schools or per-school staffing investment that often correlates with stronger per-student supports)
student-teacher ratio is the simplest comparative metric but it does not capture the full picture: the ratio counts FTE classroom teachers against total enrollment, push-in specialists, English-language aides, special-education co-teachers, and counselors are not included in most reporting Lower values often correlate with smaller scale and population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se.
Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Parkston
Ranked by the Simpson student-body diversity index (0-100) from NCES race and ethnicity data, where higher means a more evenly mixed student body. It measures mix, not quality.
Which Parkston school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼
Our Home has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Parkston schools in this federal-data comparison at 62/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
How many schools are in Parkston, SD? ▼
Parkston has 5 public schools with a total enrollment of 540 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 12.7:1.
Data from NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) 2024-25 and Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) 2021-22. The Resource Investment Index uses reported student-teacher ratio,
counselor access, gifted programs, and attendance; it is not an academic rating. Cities must include at least five schools to be listed. This public-data comparison is for informational purposes:
verify current enrollment, attendance boundaries, and programs with the school district before acting. See the guide to understanding NCES data.
