The top reported proficiency rate is 47% in English language arts. The lowest is 33% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Colome Middle School - 03
Colome Middle School sits in a very small rural town in Tripp County, South Dakota, serving grades six through eight as part of the Colome Consolidated 59-3 school district. The school is tiny, with an enrollment small enough that each grade level is a single homeroom-sized group. This is a place where every teacher likely knows every student by name, and the peer environment is intimate by design rather than by choice.
The student body is predominantly white, with a meaningful Native American presence and a small number of multiracial students. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which reflects the economic realities of the surrounding community. The town itself is a quiet agricultural and hunting-tourism community, incorporated generations ago, with a modest residential footprint and a downtown anchored by City Hall and the Fire Hall. The town takes visible pride in its schools, publicly identifying with the Colome Cowboys and Cowgirls as a community focal point. Hunting season brings outside visitors to the area each fall, which local businesses depend on, but the town otherwise has limited commercial activity and no identified public transit, library system, or parks infrastructure in the available sources.
On state assessments, Colome Middle School's results are mixed. In English language arts, proficiency sits below the midpoint, with fewer than half of tested students reaching proficient or above. Math proficiency is lower still, with about a third of students meeting that bar. Both subjects showed full participation among the small testing group. Science results were suppressed, which commonly reflects small testing populations in rural schools rather than a lack of performance. A parent evaluating academic rigor may want to look into how the school supports students who are below grade level and what intervention resources are available, since the proficiency numbers suggest room for growth in core subjects. No average scale scores were reported, and no multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to tell from this data whether performance is improving or declining.
Several data points that would help round out a parent's picture were not available. Information on the Individualized Education Program rate, English learner population, staffing levels, course access, discipline data, and attendance was missing from the provided records. Title I status was not reported, and the school's specific locale classification was absent. Without these pieces, it is hard to characterize the full scope of student support services. The school is not a charter school and has no magnet designation, consistent with its role as a traditional middle school within a consolidated rural district.
The district context matters here. Colome Consolidated 59-3 recently went through a publicly reported reorganization that split the Wood and Witten communities away from the district, redirecting them to the White River and Winner school districts. The Witten school building closed in 2021 and the Wood school building closed in late 2022 after the district could not hire a teacher for that site, which had left remaining students from both communities facing long bus rides to Colome. Voters approved the reorganization on a narrow second vote. The district now covers a smaller geographic area and has lost a meaningful share of its assessed taxable value. For families currently in Colome itself, the practical effect may be limited, but the restructuring reshapes the district's tax base and long-term planning in ways worth asking about.
What this school offers is a close-knit, small-town middle school experience in a community where the school is a civic anchor. The trade-off is that academic outcomes on state tests are currently below the midpoint, program offerings and extracurricular details were not provided, and the surrounding town has limited amenities beyond what the school and basic local businesses provide. For a family already rooted in Colome, the school is the natural and community-centered choice. For a family weighing options, the academic data and the missing support-service information are the areas most worth pressing the district on before deciding.
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