At $17,235 per pupil, Lake Preston School District 38-3 ranks #23 of 149 South Dakota districts by per-pupil spending (South Dakota districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
187
Total Enrollment
3
Schools
$17,235
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, High
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Lake Preston School District 38-3 operates 3 public schools serving 187 students, placing it among the smallest districts in South Dakota. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 combined, 1 high, 1 middle schools, a small enough portfolio that most families will interact with nearly every campus in the district at some point. These enrollment and school figures come from the NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) 2024-25 release, and the district is based in Kingsbury County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $17,235 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 149 South Dakota districts by per-pupil spending. See how South Dakota compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 70.5% local, 20.8% state, and 8.7% federal, a local-revenue-heavy mix that leaves the district more exposed to property-tax swings and local ballot measures than state-funded peers.
a 56.7:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 24.8% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 91.1% White, 2.8% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Lake Preston Middle School - 03, with a diversity index of 22.0/100.
Its largest campus is Lake Preston Elementary - 02, enrolling 96 students (56% of the district's total enrollment).
Lake Preston Elementary - 02 accounts for 51.3% of all Lake Preston School District 38-3 student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Lake Preston School District 38-3 a distant remainder — means Lake Preston School District 38-3-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the largest entity. Grade band: combined. The share measures enrollment concentration only; it does not establish how the district allocates 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.
Lake Preston School District 38-3 school enrollment varies 2.9× across entities
Lake Preston School District 38-3 school enrollment ranges from 33 students (lowest) to 96 students (highest), a spread of 63 students. That relatively narrow ratio reflects an unusually homogeneous campus portfolio, most districts have a wider mix of school sizes. Per-school staffing ratios, programme availability, and capital-renovation cycles often diverge inside the same district based on enrollment shape.
Lake Preston School District 38-3 student-counselor ratio is 57:1 — well below typical (typically associated with unusually small scale or exceptionally high per-unit investment)
student-counselor ratio is the simplest comparative metric but it does not capture the full picture: the ratio counts FTE counselors against total enrollment, districts that contract intervention or social-emotional staff outside the counselor classification may be under-counted Values this far below typical often correlate with unusually small scale or population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se — worth checking whether the underlying denominator is itself an outlier.
Lake Preston School District 38-3 chronic absenteeism rate is 24.8% — near the typical range (US average ~28) — aligned with the national post-pandemic baseline of roughly 28% chronic absenteeism
chronic absenteeism rate is the simplest comparative metric but it does not capture the full picture: a student is chronically absent if they miss ≥10% of enrolled days for any reason, illness, family obligations, or disengagement Variation between sub-units within Lake Preston School District 38-3 is typically wider than the Lake Preston School District 38-3-aggregate figure suggests.
Comparisons are relative to Lake Preston School District 38-3's own figures; each column derives from NCES Common Core of Data and the F-33 Finance Survey.
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