The top reported proficiency rate is 75% in English language arts. The lowest is 63% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Glendale Colony Elementary - 04
Glendale Colony Elementary sits in Frankfort, a very small rural agricultural community in Spink County, South Dakota. The school serves kindergarten through eighth grade as part of the Hitchcock-Tulare School District. With an enrollment that is small even by rural standards, the school operates with a tight, intimate structure where each grade carries just a handful of students. The student body is entirely white. The school is neither a charter nor a magnet, and it sits within a community that is agricultural to its core, surrounded by farmland rather than commercial development.
The name and setting point to a Hutterite colony school, which shapes the character of the place in ways a parent should understand. These schools are rooted in the religious and communal life of the colony, and the peer environment reflects that tight-knit, faith-based culture. Enrollment is small enough that every student is known individually, and the classroom structure spans multiple grades in a way that is typical of colony schools across the Dakotas.
On state assessments, the most recent results show genuine strength. In English language arts, a strong share of tested students reached proficiency, and in math, a solid majority did the same. Every tested student participated, which speaks to consistent engagement with the state testing process. Science results were suppressed, which is common when the number of tested students in a given subject is small; a parent may want to look into this further with the school if science outcomes are a priority. No multi-year trend data was available, so it is hard to say whether these results represent a stable pattern or a single year's snapshot.
The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. Free-or-reduced-price lunch data, special education rates, and English learner counts were all missing from the available data. Program offerings, staffing details, attendance figures, discipline data, and course access information were not provided either. This is a thin data profile, and the gaps likely reflect the nature of a very small colony school rather than anything hidden. Still, families considering this school should ask directly about support services, special education, and enrichment opportunities, because the available data does not speak to them.
Frankfort itself is a community in modest population decline, with no major new housing developments or commercial growth initiatives publicly documented. Civic infrastructure is minimal. Fisher Grove State Park sits just next door and offers camping, fishing, and canoeing, which gives families a nearby outdoor recreational anchor. No public library or transit information was found. The built environment is sparse, with agricultural land surrounding a small residential footprint and no documented downtown street life or retail corridors. Major employers were not identified in available sources, which is consistent with the town's agricultural character.
Housing in the Frankfort area is affordable relative to both state and national benchmarks. Typical home values sit well below the state midpoint, and the price-to-income ratio is low, meaning that ownership is within reach for working families at prevailing mortgage rates. No rental market data was available for the area. For a family already connected to the colony or drawn to this kind of rural, faith-based educational setting, the housing market poses little barrier.
The Hitchcock-Tulare School District did not surface any parent-relevant changes in recent public reporting, such as referendums, curriculum overhauls, or tax shifts. Nothing was found, so there is nothing to report. A family looking at this school should weigh the academic results, which are genuinely solid in the tested subjects, against the very real limits of what a school this small can offer in terms of specialized programs, extracurricular breadth, and documented support services. The fit here is specific: a small, culturally cohesive, agriculturally rooted environment where the trade-off is intimacy and shared values in place of the range and resources a larger school might provide.
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