NCES CCD 2024-25 9 schools SD

Best-Resourced Schools in Watertown, SD

Compiled from official source data by .

9 public K-12 schools in Watertown 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
9
Schools
3,864
Students
45.4/100
Avg Resource Index
15.3:1
Avg Student-Teacher Ratio

National city placement

Middle-of-corpus city profile

According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Watertown has more public-school enrollment than 42% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Watertown sits in the broad middle of the national city distribution rather than at a single obvious extreme. Its scale, average Resource Investment Index, and staffing position need to be read together: a middle placement on one measure does not cancel a stronger or weaker result on another. The percentile panel makes those dimensions explicit, and the school table shows where the city aggregate breaks into materially different campus profiles.

A full K–12 ladder sits inside the city boundary

Watertown's list includes 4 elementary, 1 middle, and 1 high-school campus, plus 3 combined-grade records. The city average spans every major grade stage, so the ranked table is more informative when read within level than as one interchangeable queue.

A small portfolio contains radically different campus scales

Watertown lists only 9 schools, yet reported enrollment runs from 50 to 1,222 students, a 24-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 58%
School count
Top 46%
Resource Index average
72nd percentile
Teacher staffing
51st percentile

Watertown High School - 01 accounts for 31.6% of all Watertown public-school enrollment

That dominant concentration means Watertown-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

Watertown school enrollment varies 24× across entities

Watertown school enrollment ranges from 50 students (lowest) to 1,222 students (highest), a spread of 1,172 students. That spread is wider than typical and predicts noticeable gaps in service quality between the highest and lowest areas. 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

Watertown operates one school district — a single-district system

Watertown'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

Watertown student-teacher ratio is 15.3:1 — 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 Watertown is typically wider than the Watertown-aggregate figure suggests.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, Public School Universe

# School Score
1. Mckinley Elementary - 06 67
2. Roosevelt Elementary - 08 55
3. Mellette Elementary - 07 51
4. Garfield Education Center - 14 50
5. Jefferson Elementary - 09 49
6. Lincoln Elementary - 05 46
7. Watertown Middle School - 02 34
8. Watertown Intermediate School - 13 31
9. Watertown High School - 01 26

Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Watertown

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 Mellette Elementary - 07 45.6/100
  2. 2 Lincoln Elementary - 05 40.9/100
  3. 3 Mckinley Elementary - 06 38.4/100
  4. 4 Watertown Intermediate School - 13 35.4/100
  5. 5 Watertown High School - 01 32.3/100

What do families ask about schools in Watertown?

Which Watertown school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼

Mckinley Elementary - 06 has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Watertown schools in this federal-data comparison at 67/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.

How many schools are in Watertown, SD? ▼

Watertown has 9 public schools with a total enrollment of 3,864 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 15.3:1.

Other Cities in South Dakota

Sioux Falls
52 schools
Rapid City
26 schools
Aberdeen
12 schools
Mitchell
10 schools
Brandon
9 schools
Huron
9 schools

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.