Every preschool and private school in the Black Hills, and the towns that have none

Every preschool and private school in the Black Hills, with addresses, plus the towns that have neither. Written because the answer is scattered across a state portal, a federal survey and a dozen church websites. It covers every private and parochial K-12 school I could verify, every Head Start site, the base child development center, and the licensed centers town by town.

The most useful part is probably the list of towns that have none.

What is not here, which is most of the map

No private K-12 school at all in: Box Elder, Sturgis, Piedmont, Summerset, Belle Fourche, Custer, Hill City, Lead, Deadwood or Whitewood. That is confirmed against both the federal private school survey and the South Dakota Department of Education accredited list, not assumed from a search.

No licensed child care center at all in: Piedmont, Hill City, Lead or Whitewood. South Dakota licenses a child care center and a school age program as two different things, so Whitewood does have a licensed after school program at the elementary while having no center for children under school age. Hill City has one registered family day care home. Lead has nothing in the state portal at all, and families there use the Deadwood programs.

Head Start is home visits only in Spearfish, Sturgis, Custer, Hot Springs, Lead, Deadwood and Hill City. Classroom Head Start exists in Rapid City, Box Elder and Belle Fourche and nowhere else in this region. If you are moving here counting on a Head Start classroom, that is the single most important line in this whole page.

No district pre-K in Spearfish, in Belle Fourche, or anywhere in the Meade district except Whitewood.

None of that is a knock on any of those towns. It is just the thing nobody tells you until you have already bought.

Private and parochial K-12

Rapid City

• St. Thomas More High School, 424 Fairmont Blvd, grades 9 to 12. Roman Catholic, Rapid City Catholic School System.
• St. Thomas More Middle School, 424 Fairmont Blvd, grades 6 to 8. Roman Catholic.
• St. Elizabeth Seton Elementary, 2101 City Springs Rd Suite 100, grades K to 5. Roman Catholic. Enrollment 285.
• Rapid City Christian School, 23757 Arena Dr, grades 6 to 12. Interdenominational. Several directories list this as K to 12; the school's own site and the state directory both show 6 to 12, so confirm the grade range directly if you have an elementary age child.
• Creekside Christian School, 2225 E Saint Patrick St, grades K to 8. Christian, ACSI member. Enrollment 128.
• Calvary Baptist Christian School, 4601 S Highway 16, grades PK to 5. Baptist. Enrollment 227. The federal record lists the same site as 4601 Mount Rushmore Road, which is the same road under two names.
• St. Paul's Lutheran School, 835 E Fairmont Blvd, grades K to 8. Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. Enrollment 127.
• Zion Lutheran School, 4550 Mount Rushmore Rd, grades PK to 5. Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Enrollment 177.
• Rapid City Seventh-day Adventist Elementary, 1636 Concourse Ct, grades K to 8. Seventh-day Adventist. Enrollment 18. No website, and it is not on the state accredited list, so call before you count on it.
• Children's Home Society Owen School, 24100 S Rockerville Rd, grades PK to 7. A therapeutic school attached to a residential program rather than a general enrollment option.
• Black Hills Montessori School, 305 N 39th St, listed for grades K to 5 in the 2023-24 federal survey. The website has not been updated since 2010, the address has since appeared in a residential sale listing, and the school is on neither state list. I think this one has closed. Confirm before you plan around it.

Children's House Montessori

3520 West Main Street, Rapid City. 605-341-0824. chkids.net. Three mixed-age classrooms run the full Montessori sequence: Primary ages 3 to 6, Lower Elementary 6 to 9, Upper Elementary 9 to 12. Non-profit, state accredited since 2001, Montessori curriculum and Montessori materials. It is not affiliated with AMS or AMI as far as I can tell, so I will not claim it is.

If you want Montessori here, this is the school. Not one of several. The only other Montessori in the federal survey, Black Hills Montessori on North 39th, is the one further up that I think has closed.

It starts at three, which is why parents hunting for a preschool never find it. It sits on the private school lists, not the daycare lists, so people searching for a preschool in Rapid City can go a long time without learning it exists.

It is full for the 2026-27 program, with a waitlist. If Montessori is the reason you are choosing a neighborhood, get on that list before you list your current house, not after you land.

Black Hawk

• Divine Shepherd Lutheran Classical Academy, 7308 Wedgewood Dr. Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, classical curriculum. Grade range not published, and the academy is absent from both the federal survey and the state list, which usually means recently founded.

Spearfish

• Black Hills Christian Academy, 630 S 32nd St, preschool through grade 12. Independent non-denominational, accredited through Cognia and ACSI. This is the only private K-12 school outside Rapid City and Black Hawk in the whole region.

Hot Springs

• Bethesda Lutheran School, 1537 Baltimore Ave, grades PK to 4. Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. The church runs the school, a preschool and childcare together at the same address.

Online

• Black Hills Online Learning Community, K to 12, fully online and self paced. Worth knowing this is a public program, not a private school, which the name does not make obvious.

Head Start and Early Head Start

Two grantees split this region.

Youth and Family Services covers the central and southern Hills, from 410 E Monroe St in Rapid City.

• Rapid City, 120 E Adams St, ages four weeks to five years, licensed.
• Box Elder, 421 Don Williams Dr, ages four weeks to five years, run in partnership with the Douglas School District at the Carrousel School building.
• Home based, expectant parents and children birth to five, across the towns with no classroom.

TREC Badlands Head Start covers the northern counties.

• Belle Fourche, on 5th Avenue. Two Head Start preschool classrooms for ages three to five, with Early Head Start home visiting staff based there. Their own site gives two different street numbers for this location, so call rather than drive.

Ellsworth Air Force Base

• McRaven Child Development Center, 1314 LeMay Blvd. The base Force Support Squadron page says six weeks up to five years; the Department of Defense installation page says six months. Ask the CDC directly, because that gap matters if you are PCSing with an infant.
• The base also runs youth programs and family child care. Neither publishes much detail. The School Liaison Officer is at 605-385-1381 and is the right first call for anything school related on arrival.

District preschool and pre-K

Nine schools across five districts run a pre-K program: Rapid City Area Schools at four buildings, Douglas at two, Custer at two, Hot Springs at one, Hill City at one, and Meade at Whitewood only.

One caution on Rapid City Area Schools. A 2024 report said preschool enrollment had been suspended over a teacher shortage, and the district's preschool page returns an error. Do not assume it is open, and call the district.

Licensed centers, town by town

These are the state licensed child care centers by town. Licensing status and open seats change, so the South Dakota Child Care Provider Search is the live record and the addresses below come from it. Registered family day care homes are a separate and much larger category the same portal covers, with hundreds of homes across these counties.

Rapid City

• Youth & Family Services CDC, 120 E Adams St
• Zion Lutheran Preschool and Daycare, 4550 Mount Rushmore Rd
• St. Paul's Lutheran Preschool & Daycare, 835 E Fairmont Blvd
• St. Elizabeth Seton Child Care, 2101 City Springs Rd Ste 100
• Children's House Montessori, 3520 W Main St
• Westside Preschool & Daycare, 3500 Canyon Lake Dr. Running since 1972, two months to twelve years, 7:00 to 5:30, licensed capacity 205.
• YMCA Child Care, 815 Kansas City St
• Jumpstart YMCA, 601 Columbus St
• Rapid City YMCA Learning Center, 830 Quincy St
• Every Child Is Special, 4703 S Canyon Rd
• Rural America Initiatives, 2112 S Valley Dr
• Wakhanyeza Child Care Center, 612 Crazy Horse St
• One Heart Child Development Center, 201 Kansas City St
• Dream Kids Preschool & Children's Center, 2225 E Saint Patrick St
• Impact Kidz Academy, 625 N Creek Dr
• The Kids Den, 6047 Tartan Ct
• Star Mountain Daycare and Preschool, 602 Auburn Dr
• Rapid City Children's Center, 2311 Oak Ave
• Our Little Treasures Daycare and Preschool, 1123 Kansas City St
• Little Owls Daycare & Preschool, 110 N Cambell St D
• Lil' Punkins Daycare, 3747 Sonora Dr
• Lil Friends Learning Center, 1620 Concourse Ct
• Kidz Cove Children's Learning Center, 606 E Indiana St
• Horizon Point Child Development Center, 7001 Mt Rushmore Rd
• Creative Kids, 4605 Easy St
• City Kids LLC, 2941 Lanark Rd
• Banana Bunch CLC 2, 924 E Saint Patrick St
• Wonder and Willow, 1500 Sedivy Ln
• Real Life Childcare Center, 4024 Sheridan Lake Rd
• Fit-n-Fun CAMInc., 3660 Sturgis Rd

Spearfish

• The Uplift Center, 10959 Kellem Ln. Six weeks to six years, 6:45 to 5:30.
• Prairie Hills Child Care Center, 2015 Tumble Weed Trail
• Prairie Hills Jr. Kindergarten, 122 Recreation Ln
• Kids Point Central, 535 N 7th St
• Hillsview Day Care Center, 1200 N 10th St
• Children First, 236 W Jackson Blvd Ste 101
• Learning Tree, 606 29th St

Black Hawk

• 7308 Wedgewood Dr
• 5504 Oak St
• 5502 Oak St

Summerset

• 8084 Stagestop Rd

Piedmont

• 16159 N 2nd St

Box Elder

• 471 Constitution Blvd

Box Elder, South Dakota is served by Douglas School District 51-1. There is also a Box Elder School District in Utah, so make sure a search result is the South Dakota district before you rely on it.

Sturgis

• 198 Old Stone Rd

Belle Fourche

• 717 Jackson St

Custer

• 12622 US Hwy 16A
• 1315 Bluebell Ln

Hot Springs

• 1537 Baltimore Ave

Deadwood

• Northern Hills Alliance for Children, First Step, 753 Main St. Infant through pre-K plus a school age program. They also run an after school program in the lunchroom at Lead-Deadwood Elementary, kindergarten through fifth, weekdays 3 to 6.

Whitewood

• Whitewood Elementary After-School Program, 603 Garfield St, a licensed school age program in the only Meade district building with a pre-K.

Special education and early intervention

• Rapid City Area Schools ChildFind, 625 9th St, birth to 21, with developmental screening at ages three and four.
• Douglas School District Carrousel School, 421 Don Williams Dr, Box Elder. This is the same building that houses the Box Elder Head Start classroom, which is not a mistake: the district and Youth and Family Services run their programs there together.
• Hill City School District Early Childhood Special Education, birth to school age, including physical therapy for resident children under three with more significant developmental needs.
• South Dakota Birth to Three is the state's early intervention system under IDEA Part C, administered by the Department of Education and delivered by regional providers. The regional provider covering the Black Hills changes, so start with the state and ask who holds it now.

Two things move under you here. Licensing status changes, so the state licensing search is the live record for any center on this page, and absence from that portal is not evidence a program is unlicensed or closed. Waitlists are the harder constraint: Children's House Montessori is already full for 2026-27, and that is the normal condition for the infant and toddler rooms in Rapid City rather than the exception.