The top reported proficiency rate is 94% in Science. The lowest is 30% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Kimball Elementary - 02
Kimball Elementary - 02 is a small public elementary school serving pre-kindergarten through fourth grade in the town of Kimball, South Dakota, part of Kimball School District 07-2. With a total enrollment that is modest for its grade band, the school spans seven early-childhood and elementary grades in a single building on South East Street. The student body is predominantly white, with a small number of American Indian or Alaska Native students and students of two or more races, and a few Hispanic students. About a quarter of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which is a relatively low share for a South Dakota elementary school and points to a community where economic need is present but not widespread.
On state assessments, the most recent results paint a mixed picture. In math, proficiency is strong, with a solid majority of tested students scoring at or above the proficient level on the SBAC assessment. Full participation was reported, and the tested group covered grades three through eight as the state reports them, though this school's own grade range ends at fourth grade, so the results reflect the upper elementary students in the building. In English language arts, the picture is quite different. Fewer than a third of tested students reached proficiency, a result that stands well below the math performance at the same school and that a parent may want to look into further with the school to understand what is driving the gap between the two subjects.
Science results appear in the data, but they come from an older testing period and a grade level the school no longer serves. Because the current grade band runs through fourth grade and the science result is from a fifth-grade assessment over a decade ago, it does not reflect the school as it operates today. We note it here so a reader does not mistake it for a current measure, and we leave it out of any judgment about present performance.
Several pieces of information that would help round out a parent's understanding were not available. The data did not include IEP counts or English-learner counts, so the size of any special-education or language-support populations is unknown. No staffing figures, classroom ratios, attendance rates, or discipline data were provided. No program offerings, such as preschool curriculum details, after-school activities, or intervention supports, appeared in the payload. No Title I status was listed. The school does not have graduation-rate data, and this is expected: a school ending at fourth grade does not produce graduates.
The locale and district context is thin in the provided material. Kimball is a small town in central South Dakota, and publicly reported information about downtown Main Street businesses and recent district-level changes turned up little of lasting impact, so there is not much to relay beyond the fact that the district searched cleanly and nothing surfaced that would signal disruption or major restructuring. No housing values, rental rates, or comparison positioning against neighboring districts were included in the data, so we cannot describe the local housing market or place this school's academic results against its county peers. A parent looking for that context would need to go beyond what is available here.
What the data does support is a read of a small, stable rural elementary school where math instruction is producing results well above what many schools achieve, and where literacy is a clear area of concern. For a family evaluating this school, the math results are reassuring, the ELA results warrant a direct conversation with school staff, and the small size means a child will likely be known by name across grade levels. Whether that intimate setting is a fit depends on what a family wants from the early elementary years, and the missing program and staffing data mean some of that conversation will need to happen with the school directly rather than being answered by the public record.
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