Patriot Elementary -06

Patriot Elementary -06 is a sizable primary school in Box Elder, South Dakota, one of the schools within Douglas School District 51-1. The school educates 982 students in grades pre-K through 3. Enrollment runs roughly 381% larger than the state mean of about 204.

Douglas School District 51-1 comprises 4 schools with combined enrollment of 2,808 students; Patriot Elementary -06 is among them.

Demographically, Patriot Elementary -06 reports that White students make up the majority at 63%; the rest breaks down as 13% Hispanic, 12% multiracial, 8% Native American, 3% Black. That is noticeably less White than the county at large, where the share is closer to 79%.

In terms of school funding signals, Patriot Elementary -06 lists 62 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 15.8:1. The state averages about 15.4:1, putting this campus right in line with peers. An estimated 36% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Patriot Elementary -06 performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 48.3%, the actual is 53.7%, a residual of +5.3 points.

In the broader community, community-level numbers for Pennington County indicate the typical household earns roughly $74,517 per year, 35% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 7%. Across Pennington County's 41 public schools (combined enrollment of about 16,186 students), Patriot Elementary -06 is one campus in the mix.

Douglas High School - 03 is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.1 miles from this campus. 3 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Patriot Elementary -06 comes 1st of 8 in the immediate cluster, higher than the nearby-schools average of 32.6%.

Patriot Elementary -06 operates from a small-town location.

Trend over the last 7 years. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Patriot Elementary -06 has held roughly steady, going from 1,000 students in 2018 to 982 in 2025. The White share of enrollment decreased from 70% to 63% over that span.

On this page, posts here usually surface around sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.