The top reported proficiency rate is 82% in Math. The lowest is 46% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Oldham-ramona Elementary - 02
Oldham-Ramona Elementary sat in Ramona, a very small rural town in Lake County, South Dakota. Publicly reported records describe Ramona as a compact farm-town community, platted in the late nineteenth century and named for a local family. The town covers a small land area with no incorporated water, and it is small enough that its municipal operations run through a post office box and a single listed phone number. The school's street address was on West Second Street, placing it within the town itself.
The most important thing to understand about this school is that it is closed. The operational status recorded in the data is "closed," and the publicly reported consolidation history explains why. The Oldham and Ramona school districts first combined to form the Oldham-Ramona School District, which then consolidated into the broader Oldham-Ramona-Rutland School District in 2023. A parent or resident looking at this profile should know that Oldham-Ramona Elementary no longer operates as a standalone school. Children in Ramona now attend schools within the consolidated district, and the academic results shown here reflect the last reported testing year before closure.
What the state assessment data shows is limited but worth reading carefully. The school served elementary grades, and South Dakota tested students in math and English language arts beginning in grade three. Only the grade three results are reported in full. In math, the share of tested students reaching proficiency was high, with full participation among the small group of test-takers. In English language arts, the proficiency rate was more moderate, with fewer than half of the same small group meeting the state's proficiency bar. Because the tested group was very small, a single student's performance moves the percentage substantially, so these results should be read as a snapshot rather than a trend. Grades four through six in both math and English language arts were suppressed, meaning the state did not publish results for those grade levels, likely because the number of tested students fell below a reporting threshold. Science results for grade five were also suppressed. No average scale scores were reported for any grade or subject.
Beyond the assessment snapshot, the data is thin. Enrollment figures were not available, so there is no record of total student count or grade-by-grade distribution. Free and reduced-price lunch counts and rates were missing. Racial and ethnic composition was not reported. Special population data, including individualized education program rates and English learner rates, was absent. Staffing, attendance, discipline, and course access information was not provided. No Title I status was recorded. The school was not a charter school and had no magnet designation. Civil rights data was not included in the payload.
No community or economic context data was attached to this school's record. The locale brief for Ramona itself found no information on major employers, civic anchors such as parks or libraries, public transit, or growth and development trends. No walkability scores or street-life descriptions were available. The district brief searched for parent-relevant changes such as referenda, curriculum shifts, or property-tax adjustments and found none beyond the consolidation itself, which is the defining event for this school's story.
For a parent or resident trying to understand what this school was, the picture is that of a very small rural elementary school in a shrinking district, one that produced a strong single-year math result and a middling English language arts result in its last reported testing cohort, and then closed as part of a broader consolidation. The academic signal from that final year is real but narrow, drawn from a tiny group of students, and it cannot tell you much about sustained performance over time. If you are considering the Ramona area for your family, the relevant question now is not about this school but about the consolidated district that replaced it, and a parent may want to look into the current Oldham-Ramona-Rutland district's offerings and outcomes directly.
See more original research from School Decision →