SD Smarter Balanced + SD Science, SY 2024-25
All grades, all students. % Proficient.English Language Arts
26.6%
State avg 50.3%
District avg 41.3%
County avg 43.2%
-5.5pp since 2022-23
Mathematics
27.9%
State avg 47.5%
District avg 37.2%
County avg 37.6%
-9.9pp since 2022-23
Science
32.7%
State avg 44.3%
District avg 37.6%
County avg 38.2%
+9.6pp since 2022-23
What this means: On the SD Smarter Balanced + SD Science, South Dakota's statewide test, about 27 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level, about 28 of 100 do math at grade level, and about 33 of 100 are at grade level in science. Across all South Dakota schools, those numbers are about 50, 47, and 44. Reading and writing scores are down about 6 points since 2022, while math scores are down about 10 points and science scores are up about 10 points.
BeatsExpectations
Demographically-adjusted score · methodologyTier
UNDERPERFORMING
Bottom 10% of SD schools after controlling for student poverty
Actual proficiency
30.8%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
46.2%
based on SD schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
-15.4pp
below demographic expectation
What this means: About 31% of students here test proficient in math and reading, below the roughly 46% typical for South Dakota schools with a similar share of low-income students. BeatsExpectations compares each school with others at the same poverty level, not by raw scores, so a school lands here when its results trail those comparable schools, which is not the same as having low scores. A higher-scoring school can still fall in this tier if similar schools score higher still.
BeatsExpectations runs a per-state regression of proficiency on free/reduced-lunch share, then scores each school by residual.
How this is calculated →What is SD Smarter Balanced + SD Science?
SD Smarter Balanced + SD Science is the statewide standardized test administered by South Dakota public schools.
What does "% Proficient" mean?
It is the share of students at the school who performed at grade level or above on the test, summed across the top two of four performance levels. A higher number is better.
What does 26.6% mean for English Language Arts at Valley View Elementary - 13?
It means about 26.6 percent of students tested at Valley View Elementary - 13 performed at grade level or above on the SD Smarter Balanced + SD Science English Language Arts test in 2024-25. The statewide average for South Dakota that year was 50.3%. The other students fell into the lower performance levels.
How is the state average calculated?
It is a weighted average, not a simple average of each school's number. We multiply each public school's score by how many of its students tested, add those together for all schools in South Dakota, and divide by the total students tested that year. This way a big school with 1,500 students counts more than a small school with 50 students, which is the right way to ask "how did the typical student do this year?". District and county averages on this page use the same method, just scoped to that district or county.
Where does this data come from?
South Dakota Department of Education, Smarter Balanced (ELA + Math) + SD Science Assessment. School-level All Students subgroup, current-year column from the SD Report Card MicroStrategy export. Headline metric is the cumulative SBAC Level 3+4 / SD Science Proficient+Advanced rate.
How often is it updated?
SD Smarter Balanced + SD Science is administered once a year (spring). Results are released by the state in the summer or early fall. We refresh this page after each annual release.
