The top reported proficiency rate is 62% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Cedar Grove Colony Elementary - 14
Cedar Grove Colony Elementary - 14 is a small kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school in the Platte-Geddes School District, located near Platte in Charles Mix County, South Dakota. The name tells you most of what you need to know: this is a colony school, almost certainly serving a Hutterite community on colony land. The enrollment is tiny, the student body is entirely white, and the setting is deeply rural. A parent reading this is almost certainly either a colony family or someone trying to understand how colony schools fit within the broader Platte-Geddes district. For most families outside the colony, this school is not an open-enrollment option; it exists to educate colony children in their own community.
On state assessments, the school's math and English language arts results are solid for a small rural colony school. Both subjects show a majority of tested students reaching proficiency, with full participation among those tested. Science results were suppressed, which is common for schools with very few students in the tested grade band; suppression here reflects the small testing population, not a missing or weak result. There is no graduation rate, because the school does not serve high school grades. There is no trend data available, so it is hard to say whether these proficiency levels are improving, holding steady, or declining over time. A parent wanting a fuller academic picture may want to look into this further with the district.
The school's demographic and program data is thin. Free-or-reduced-price lunch counts are missing, as are individualized education program rates and English learner counts. No information on staffing ratios, attendance, discipline, or course offerings was available. This is typical for colony schools, which operate with a single teacher or a very small staff and follow a straightforward curriculum focused on core subjects. The absence of these data fields is not a red flag so much as a reflection of how these schools function.
Platte itself is a compact agricultural town at the junction of Highways 44 and 45. Publicly reported sources describe it as a community whose economy has always run on farming and ranching, with surrounding cropland producing corn, wheat, soybeans, and alfalfa, plus cattle, hog, and sheep operations. The town has a traditional Main Street with diverse retail businesses, multiple restaurants, and lodging options, and it ranks as a leader in retail sales for communities of its size. The Platte Development Corporation has driven modest recent growth, including new housing construction and a nonprofit daycare under construction that will serve dozens of children with day, after-school, and summer programs. The town sits near Lake Francis Case, a Missouri River reservoir known for walleye fishing, and the state manages several recreation areas nearby with campgrounds, boat ramps, and a marina.
Housing in the 57369 zip code is modestly priced relative to national benchmarks, with a typical home value below the national midpoint and close to the South Dakota state benchmark. The price-to-income ratio sits below the national average, suggesting that homeownership here is more attainable than in many parts of the country, though mortgage rates remain elevated. No rental data was available for this area.
The Platte-Geddes district was formed from the consolidation of the Platte and Geddes school districts. No parent-relevant district changes, such as referendums, curriculum overhauls, or property-tax shifts, surfaced in public reporting, so there is little to flag on that front.
What this school offers is a tightly knit, single-community educational setting grounded in a specific religious and cultural tradition. The academic results it posts are respectable given its size and isolation. What it does not offer is the breadth of programs, extracurriculars, or peer diversity that a larger town school provides. For colony families, that trade-off is the point. For anyone else, the school's role is best understood as one piece of a district that serves a mix of town and colony students across its campuses.
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