Southwest Middle School - 38

Southwest Middle School - 38 is one of the expansive middle schools in Rapid City, South Dakota, part of Rapid City Area School District 51-4, with 614 students on its rolls from grades 6 through 8. That puts it 228% above the typical public school in South Dakota, which averages around 187 students.

Rapid City Area School District 51-4 comprises 26 schools with combined enrollment of 12,610 students; Southwest Middle School - 38 is among them.

On the student-mix side, Southwest Middle School - 38 logs that the largest single group is White, at 77% of enrollment. Beyond that, the school reports 10% multiracial, 6% Hispanic, 4% Native American, 3% Asian. That mix tracks the wider county fairly closely.

Looking at school resources, The school currently runs with 38 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 16.3:1. The state averages around 13.4:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. About 13% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. By comparison, Pennington County runs at roughly 41%, so the school's eligibility rate is meaningfully below the surrounding baseline.

With demographic context factored in, Southwest Middle School - 38 performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 57.8%, the actual is 65.6%, a residual of +7.8 points.

In the area at large, community-level numbers for Pennington County indicate the typical household earns roughly $74,517 per year, about 35% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 7%. Across Pennington County's 41 public schools (combined enrollment of about 16,186 students), Southwest Middle School - 38 is one campus in the mix.

Corral Drive Elementary - 21 is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.0 miles from this campus. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. On composite proficiency, Southwest Middle School - 38 comes 1st of 7 in the immediate cluster, above the nearby-schools average of 47.9%.

The school occupies a metropolitan site.

Five-year trend. Southwest Middle School - 38's enrollment has edged down 7% since 2018, when it stood at 660 (now 614). White enrollment moved from 84% to 77% across the same window. The student-to-teacher ratio fell from 17.3:1 in 2018 to 16.3:1 today.

On allk12, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. Members of the school community can share what they know.