Original Research by School Decision on Camridge Colony School - 04
Camridge Colony School - 04 was a small rural school in Rutland, South Dakota, part of the Rutland School District 39-4. It is now closed. The name and location point to a Hutterite colony school, a common arrangement in South Dakota where a single schoolhouse serves children living on a colony, often across several elementary and middle grades within a very small enrollment.
Because the school served so few students, every state assessment result the state collects has been suppressed for privacy. Math and English language arts scores for grades three through seven, and science for grade five, all came back suppressed for the most recent reporting year. The same privacy threshold suppressed the number of students tested, the count of proficient students, and participation rates. Average scale scores were missing entirely. This means there is no publicly available picture of academic performance from state testing. A parent or researcher looking for achievement data would need to contact the district directly, and given the school's closure, even that avenue may be limited.
Enrollment figures, demographic breakdowns, free and reduced-price lunch counts, special education and English learner data were all missing from the records we received. No staffing, attendance, discipline, or course-access information was available either. The school's grade band is listed as a single grade marker, which likely reflects the colony school format rather than a conventional grade configuration. The school was not a charter or magnet. Title I status was not reported.
The school sat within the Rutland School District 39-4, and the district itself has undergone major change. In 2023, Rutland School District 39-4 consolidated with the Oldham-Ramona School District 39-5 to form the Oldham-Ramona-Rutland School District 39-6, publicly reported as a restructuring that touched governance, school sites, and district boundaries across Lake, Kingsbury, Miner, and Moody counties. Then, in 2025, a referendum on whether to dissolve and break up the newly formed district was defeated by a razor-thin margin of five votes after a recount, keeping the district intact but exposing sharp divisions in the community about its future. That vote was publicly reported in local news coverage.
No locale brief was available for Rutland itself, so we cannot speak to the town's housing market, downtown businesses, or commuting patterns from the data provided. The comparison fact-set that would position this school against neighboring entities was also absent.
What we are left with is a now-closed colony school whose academic record is not publicly visible due to small numbers, sitting inside a district that has spent the past few years reorganizing and fighting over whether it should continue to exist at all. For a parent, this school is no longer an option. For anyone trying to understand the educational landscape around Rutland, the relevant question now turns to the consolidated Oldham-Ramona-Rutland district and its current school sites.
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