The Department of Education released its annual report card on South Dakota schools last week.
The demographic data show that, over the last decade, 2% growth in South Dakota’s K-12 student population has come from everybody but Indian and white kids, whose populations have decreased by more than 8% over the past decade:
| Group | 2015–16 reported | 2015–16 % | 2025–26 % | 2025–26 (subgroups estimated from reported %) | 10-yr growth |
| All Students | 132,862 | 135,577 | 2.04% | ||
| Hispanic / Latino | 6,018 | 4.53% | 9.23% | 12,500 | 107% |
| American Indian / Alaskan Native | 15,200 | 11.44% | 10.28% | 13,900 | –8.31% |
| Asian | 2,198 | 1.65% | 1.66% | 2,250 | 2.39% |
| Black / African American | 3,508 | 2.64% | 3.57% | 4,840 | 38.0% |
| Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander | 106 | 0.08% | 0.18% | 240 | 130% |
| White / Caucasian | 101,925 | 76.71% | 68.80% | 93,280 | –8.48% |
| Multi-Racial | 3,907 | 2.94% | 6.27% | 8,500 | 118% |
The numbers of multi-racial, Hispanic, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students more than doubled from 2015 to 2025.
Total K-12 enrollment declined by more than 2,000 students from 2024 to 2025, but the ten-year trend has been annual growth in student numbers by a bit more than 2%. If the ten-year trends of 2% overall growth and 8.5 shrinkage in white student numbers stayed constant, German/Norwegian/Anglo kids would find themselves a minority like everyone else in South Dakota’s K-12 schools by 2055.