The top reported proficiency rate is 57% in English language arts. The lowest is 30% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Upland Colony Elementary - 05
Upland Colony Elementary is a very small kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school in Artesian, South Dakota, part of the Sanborn Central School District. The town sits on Highway 34 in Sanborn County, an agricultural area known for pheasant hunting. Artesian has been losing population for decades, with steady contraction common to small plains communities. The housing stock is almost entirely residential, with a meaningful share of vacant units and no major employers or commercial activity in the immediate area. Publicly reported sources describe only a handful of business establishments in the ZIP code, and no civic anchors such as parks or libraries were identified. The town's extremely small footprint means most destinations sit within a short distance, though no pedestrian infrastructure data was found.
The school itself enrolls a small number of students across all nine grade levels it serves, with roughly a handful per grade. The student body is entirely White. No free-or-reduced-price lunch data, special education counts, or English learner figures were reported, so the economic and special-population picture is incomplete. A parent looking into this school would want to ask the district directly about those supports.
On state assessments for the most recent year, the results are mixed. English language arts stands out as the stronger subject, with a solid majority of tested students reaching proficiency. That is a genuinely encouraging result for a school this size. Math proficiency is lower, with fewer than a third of tested students meeting the benchmark. Science falls in between, with roughly a third proficient. All students who were tested participated, so the results reflect the full tested group. The tested counts are small, which means a few students moving in or out of proficiency can shift the picture sharply from year to year. No multi-year trend data was available, so there is no way to tell from the provided data whether these results are improving, declining, or holding steady. A parent may want to look into this further with the school.
Because the school serves only through eighth grade, there is no graduation rate, no AP or dual-credit data, and no high school course access information. Those metrics simply do not apply here. Students presumably transition to a secondary school elsewhere in the Sanborn Central district for high school, though the provided data does not specify which building. No information on staffing, discipline, attendance, or Title I status was available. No program offerings beyond the standard curriculum were listed. No community or economic context beyond the locale brief was provided for the school itself.
The district brief for Sanborn Central turned up little in the way of recent parent-relevant changes. No major shifts in facilities, leadership, or programming were identified in publicly available sources.
What this school appears to be is a very small, rural, culturally homogeneous elementary and middle school in a contracting agricultural community. Families choosing this school are likely drawn by the intimate scale and the close-knit setting that comes with it. The ELA results suggest the school is doing some things well academically. The math results are a softer spot worth asking about. Beyond that, the data is thin enough that a family would need to contact the school directly for a fuller picture of day-to-day instruction, student support, and what happens when students finish eighth grade.
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