NCES CCD 2024-25 5 schools SD

Best-Resourced Schools in Pierre, SD

Compiled from official source data by .

5 public K-12 schools in Pierre from NCES Common Core of Data: enrollment, grade span, demographics, and Civil Rights Data Collection statistics for every active campus.

PlainSchools home → About this data
5
Schools
2,749
Students
30.6/100
Avg Resource Index
15.8:1
Avg Student-Teacher Ratio

National city placement

Compact, single-district system

According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Pierre has more public-school enrollment than 25% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Pierre's 5 listed schools all sit inside one district, creating a compact governance structure with one budget, board, and reporting chain. That makes citywide comparisons cleaner than in places split across several districts, but it does not make the campuses interchangeable: elementary, middle, and high-school staffing needs differ. The ranked list is best read as variation inside one system rather than competition among separate local authorities.

The school portfolio is elementary-weighted

3 of Pierre's 5 listed schools are elementary campuses. That composition means citywide enrollment and staffing averages are influenced more by early-grade operating patterns than by the city's 1 middle and 1 high-school records. Families comparing later grades should rely on those individual rows rather than the all-school mean.

Campus spread matters more than the city mean

The 7-point gap between Jefferson Elementary - 06 and T F Riggs High School - 01 shows the range hidden by Pierre's average Resource Investment Index. The city figure is useful for national placement, but families ultimately choose among campuses with different grade spans, enrollment, district affiliations, and reported support fields. Start with schools serving the relevant grade level, then compare the index components rather than assuming the city average describes any one classroom.

City enrollment
Top 75%
School count
Top 99%
Resource Index average
13th percentile
Teacher staffing
45th percentile

T F Riggs High School - 01 accounts for 31.1% of all Pierre public-school enrollment

That dominant concentration means Pierre-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the largest entity. Grade level: High. The share measures enrollment concentration only; it does not establish how districts allocate programs, capital, or staff. Enrollment-weighted aggregates give this entity more weight than any smaller peer, while an unweighted entity average treats every record equally.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data

Pierre school enrollment varies 2.3× across entities

Pierre school enrollment ranges from 377 students (lowest) to 855 students (highest), a spread of 478 students. That relatively narrow ratio reflects an unusually homogeneous school portfolio for a city this size. 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.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data

Pierre operates one school district — a single-district system

Pierre'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.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data

Pierre student-teacher ratio is 15.8:1 — near the typical range (US average ~15.7) — citywide staffing is neither unusually lean nor unusually crowded by this measure

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 Variation between sub-units within Pierre is typically wider than the Pierre-aggregate figure suggests.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, Public School Universe

# School Score
1. Jefferson Elementary - 06 35
2. Buchanan Elementary - 03 33
3. Georgia Morse Middle School - 02 29
4. T F Riggs High School - 01 28
5. Kennedy Elementary - 08 28

Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Pierre

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.

  1. 1 Buchanan Elementary - 03 56.5/100
  2. 2 Kennedy Elementary - 08 56.3/100
  3. 3 Jefferson Elementary - 06 54.7/100
  4. 4 Georgia Morse Middle School - 02 49.1/100
  5. 5 T F Riggs High School - 01 48.8/100

What do families ask about schools in Pierre?

Which Pierre school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼

Jefferson Elementary - 06 has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Pierre schools in this federal-data comparison at 35/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.

How many schools are in Pierre, SD? ▼

Pierre has 5 public schools with a total enrollment of 2,749 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 15.8:1.

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Side-by-side: Compare any two schools or districts in South Dakota →

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.