The reported proficiency rate for English language arts is 8%.
Original Research by School Decision on He Dog Elementary - 05
He Dog Elementary sits in Parmelee, a small rural community on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in Todd County, South Dakota. The school serves students from kindergarten through eighth grade and is part of the Todd County School District. Parmelee is home to the Sicangu Lakota Oyate, and the community's cultural life is tied to Rosebud Sioux Tribe traditions, with gatherings and events that celebrate Lakota customs and arts. The area is residential and spread out, with no commercial district, limited infrastructure, and most residents commuting by car. The community has been experiencing population decline, and housing stock is scarce, with a very low homeownership rate indicating most families rent. Median home values are low, and economic indicators point to a community facing real hardship, with limited local employment opportunities.
The school's enrollment is small for a K-8 building, with students distributed fairly evenly across the grade levels. The student body is overwhelmingly American Indian or Alaska Native, with a small Hispanic presence and a handful of students identifying as two or more races. Every student in the building qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which reflects the depth of economic need in the community. This is a school where poverty is not a subset of the population but the baseline condition for nearly all families it serves.
On state assessments, the picture is sobering. In English language arts, only a small fraction of tested students reached proficiency on the SBAC assessment, with nearly all eligible students participating. That proficiency level is well below what most schools in the state post, and it signals that many students here are not yet meeting grade-level expectations in reading and writing. Math results were suppressed for this year, meaning the state did not report a proficiency rate, and science results were also suppressed. A parent may want to ask the school directly what those results look like and what the school is doing to strengthen instruction across all three subjects. Without math and science numbers, it is hard to form a complete picture of academic performance from the state data alone.
The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. We also looked for data on special education enrollment, English learner identification, staffing ratios, attendance patterns, discipline, and course offerings, and none of these were available in the provided data. Title I status was not reported either. These gaps make it difficult to assess the full scope of student support at He Dog Elementary. A family considering this school would benefit from asking administrators directly about classroom staffing, available interventions, and any specialized programs for students who are struggling academically.
The Todd County School District recently undertook capital construction, publicly reported as a sizable investment around the 2022-23 period, but no specific curriculum changes, referenda, or policy shifts with lasting parent impact were identified in available sources. This means there is no clear district-level reform or initiative to point to as context for what is happening inside He Dog Elementary day to day.
What a family sees here is a small, community-rooted school serving an almost entirely Native American student body in a place where economic resources are thin. The cultural identity of the community is a lived reality for students, and the school's role extends beyond academics into being a civic anchor for families in Parmelee. At the same time, the academic results that are available are weak, and key pieces of the performance and support picture are missing from public data. A parent weighing this school should go in with eyes open about the proficiency gap and should ask direct questions about what the school is doing to move students forward and what supports exist for children who are behind.
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