(NEXSTAR) — When it comes to picking a school for your kids to attend, the amount of options can be daunting. Newly released rankings could help make the decision a bit easier.
Niche, a site that combines ratings from students, parents and alumni with quantitative data, recently published its high school rankings for 2024.
Overall, Niche ranked The Davidson Academy in Reno, Nevada, as the best public high school in America. Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, was declared the best private high school in the nation.
Mitchell High School was the highest-ranking South Dakota public high school on the list, coming in at No. 506. In the Sioux Falls area (Niche considers the area from Dell Rapids south to Canton and Parker east to Luverne, Minnesota the ‘Sioux Falls area‘), it was Brandon Valley High School that had the highest overall ranking at No. 531.
Brandon Valley High was one of the many Sioux Falls area public high schools to be ranked by Niche this year.
Here are the top 10 public schools in and around Sioux Falls, as well as their “overall Niche grade”:
- Brandon Valley High School, Brandon: A-
- Lincoln High School, Sioux Falls: A-
- Washington High School, Sioux Falls: A-
- West Lyon High School, West Lyon, Iowa: A-
- Roosevelt High School, Sioux Falls: A-
- Parker High School, Parker: A-
- Hills-Beaver Creek Secondary School: B+
- Baltic High School, Baltic: B
- Harrisburg High School, Harrisburg: B
- Tea Area High School, Tea: B
Some Sioux Falls area private high schools also made Niche’s list.
The highest ranking was O’Gorman High School, which was ranked No. 558 in the nation and the second-best private high school in South Dakota. Rapid City Catholic School System was the top-ranked private school in the state, according to Niche (St. Thomas More is the high school within that system).
Other area schools that made the list include Sioux Falls Christian and Saint Mary Catholic, which ranked No. 8 and No. 12 overall.
If your children aren’t quite in high schools, Niche also ranked the best school districts in and around Sioux Falls.
The Brandon Valley School District was ranked as the best in the area and the second-best in the entire state.
Niche ranked these districts as the 5 best around Sioux Falls:
- Brandon Valley School District: A
- Sioux Falls School District: A-
- Harrisburg School District: B+
- Tea Area School District: B
- Lennox School District: B
You can view Niche’s full ranking, both in and out of South Dakota, here.
South Dakota saw one of the largest increases in students being home-schooled compared to other U.S. states in recent years, an analysis by The Washington Post found. Between the 2017 and 2023 school years, that number increased by 94%, coming in behind the District of Columbia at 108% and New York at 103%.
The Sioux Falls School District, however, reports it is slowly growing in attendance.
