Henry Roy Real Estate, Ascend Realty, Rapid City South Dakota
Schools

Black Hills school districts, by town and neighborhood.

The mailing address does not tell you the district. This page records which district serves each town and each neighborhood on this site, and links the official boundary map for every one of them.

Weston Heights has a Rapid City mailing address, Meade County services, and Meade School District 46-1. Summerset is split inside its own city limits between Meade 46-1 and Rapid City Area Schools 51-4. Whitewood sits in Lawrence County and is served by Meade 46-1. Box Elder is Douglas School District 51-1, not Rapid City Area Schools.

Four sentences, four addresses where the city name on the envelope points at the wrong district. Boundaries here were drawn around county lines, old rural schools and bus routes, and the towns grew across them. The district office holds the boundary of record for any specific parcel, and every district below links to its own map or its own front door.

The districts serving this area

Rapid City Area Schools 51-4

The largest district on this list, and the one buyers assume covers anything with a Rapid City mailing address. It does not.

TownsBlack Hawk, Colonial Pine Hills, Green Valley, Rapid City, Rapid Valley, Summerset

NeighborhoodsWest Boulevard, Canyon Lake, Chapel Valley, Skyline Drive, Red Rock, Countryside, The Bluffs and Carriage Hills, Elks Country Estates, Shepherd Hills, Hart Ranch, Auburn Hills, Copperfield, The Catron Boulevard Corridor, Copper Oaks, Autumn Hills, Apple Valley, Original Summerset, The Highlands at Norman Ranch

Rapid City Area Schools boundary maps

Meade School District 46-1

Reaches well past Meade County. It serves Whitewood, which sits in Lawrence County, and Weston Heights, which carries a Rapid City mailing address.

TownsBlucksberg Mountain, Piedmont, St. Onge, Sturgis, Summerset, Whitewood

NeighborhoodsWeston Heights, The Highlands at Norman Ranch, Sun Valley, Timberwood Park Estates, Golden Valley, Prairie Haven, Downtown and Main Street, Deadman Subdivision, Hidden Valley Estates, Trailhead Subdivision, Dolan Creek Estates, Vernon Heights Estates, Harvest Meadows Estates, Valley View Subdivision, The Boulder Canyon Corridor, Vanocker Canyon, Fort Meade and the East Side, Pine View and Davenport Ranch, Established In-Town Neighborhoods, Apple Springs, Horizon Estates, Pleasant Valley Estates, Stagebarn, Indian Hills, AR Ranch Estates, Eagle Ridge Estates, Harts Elk Creek, Wonderland Homes

Meade School District

Custer School District 16-1

Runs schools in Custer and in Hermosa, so the district covers a long stretch of Custer County ground between them.

TownsCuster, Hermosa

Custer School District

Edgemont School District 23-1

Runs an elementary and a high school out of one building on Mogul Way. Separate from Hot Springs 23-2, even though both districts sit in Fall River County.

TownsEdgemont

Edgemont School District

Newell School District 09-2

Elementary, middle and high school on one campus in Newell, and the district also serves Nisland, which buses about nine miles in.

TownsNewell

NeighborhoodsNisland

Newell School District

Every town and neighborhood, with its district

25 towns and 81 neighborhoods, each showing the district recorded on its own guide. Where a guide says the assignment varies, that qualifier is carried through here word for word rather than tidied into one district name.

Belle Fourche

Belle Fourche School District 9-1

Black Hawk

Rapid City Area Schools 51-4 for most addresses

Blucksberg Mountain

Meade School District 46-1

Box Elder

Douglas School District 51-1

Buffalo Gap

Hot Springs School District 23-2, despite the town being in Custer County

Colonial Pine Hills

Rapid City Area School District 51-4

Custer

Custer School District 16-1

Edgemont

Edgemont School District 23-1

Green Valley

Split between Douglas 51-1 and Rapid City Area 51-4. Address specific.

Hermosa

Custer School District 16-1

Hill City

Hill City School District 51-2

Hot Springs

Hot Springs School District 23-2

Keystone

Hill City School District 51-2

Lead and Deadwood

Lead-Deadwood School District 40-1

New Underwood

New Underwood School District 51-3

Newell

Newell School District 09-2

Piedmont

Meade School District 46-1

Rapid City

Rapid City Area Schools 51-4

Rapid Valley

Mostly Rapid City Area School District 51-4, with portions in Douglas 51-1

Spearfish

Spearfish School District 40-2

St. Onge

Spearfish 40-2 at the townsite, with Belle Fourche 09-1 to the north and Meade 46-1 to the east. Parcel specific.

Sturgis

Meade School District 46-1

Summerset

Meade 46-1 and Rapid City Area Schools 51-4, split within the city

  • Original Summerset

    Rapid City Area Schools 51-4 for south Summerset

  • Sun Valley

    Meade School District 46-1

  • The Highlands at Norman Ranch

    Not yet assigned. Summerset splits between Rapid City Area Schools 51-4 and Meade School District 46-1, and this development is new enough that the assignment is a question for the city on a specific address.

Wall

Wall School District 51-5

Whitewood

Meade School District 46-1, despite being in Lawrence County

The places where the district does not match the address

Twelve places on this site where the county name, the city name or the mailbox points at the wrong district, or where two houses on the same drive sit in different ones. Confirm the assignment with the district office for the exact parcel before you write an offer on any of them.

  • Apple Valley. The Douglas line runs through the subdivision. 127 parcels fall in Rapid City Area Schools 51-4 and 47 fall in Douglas 51-1.
  • Summerset is split inside its own city limits between Meade 46-1 and Rapid City Area Schools 51-4. Highlands at Norman Ranch is new enough that the assignment is a question for the city on a specific lot.
  • Green Valley is split between Douglas 51-1 and Rapid City Area 51-4, address by address. Nothing about the location tells you which one, so verify per parcel.
  • Rapid Valley is mostly Rapid City Area Schools 51-4 with portions in Douglas 51-1, and the addresses near the Douglas boundary are the ones to verify.
  • Colonial Pine Hills is Rapid City Area Schools 51-4, not Hill City 51-2. It sits in the pines west of town, which is why people expect Hill City and get it wrong.
  • St. Onge. Three districts meet in the area: Spearfish 40-2 at the townsite, Belle Fourche 09-1 to the north, Meade 46-1 to the east. Take the district from the parcel, never from the mailing address.
  • Buffalo Gap sits in Custer County and belongs to Hot Springs School District 23-2, not Custer 16-1. There is no school building in town, so students travel about fourteen miles to Hot Springs.
  • Hermosa has an elementary and a middle school in town, and the high school is in Custer, about 27 miles away, in Custer 16-1.
  • Keystone is in Hill City 51-2 with no school building in town.
  • Weston Heights. Rapid City mail, Meade County, Meade 46-1.
  • Whitewood is in Lawrence County and is served by Meade 46-1.
  • Edgemont runs its own district, Edgemont 23-1, with the elementary and the high school in one building. It is separate from Hot Springs 23-2 even though both sit in Fall River County.

The small towns that run their own schools

Four towns out on the edge of this map keep their own district, which is the first thing to check when a town is an hour from Rapid City.

  • New Underwood runs elementary, middle and high school in a town of 590, all three buildings inside the limits, as New Underwood 51-3.
  • Wall runs its own school in town, Wall 51-5.
  • Newell runs elementary, middle and high school on one campus as Newell 09-2, and the district also serves Nisland, which buses about nine miles in.
  • Edgemont runs Edgemont 23-1, with the elementary and the high school at 715 Mogul Way.

Confirm the assignment for the exact parcel with the district office before making a school-driven decision, particularly on rural ground outside the town limits.

A school that no longer exists

Canyon Lake Elementary closed after the 2023-24 school year and the building was demolished on 30 December 2024. Listing remarks on the west side of Rapid City still name it as the assigned elementary.

If you read Canyon Lake Elementary in a listing, the listing is old. The assigned elementary for those addresses now depends on the parcel, and Rapid City Area Schools holds the current boundary.

Private, parochial and preschool

Those are kept in a separate directory: every preschool and private school in the Black Hills. Sixteen private and parochial schools with addresses, every Head Start site, the child development center on base, the licensed centers town by town, and the towns that have none.

Ratings and third-party data

I do not personally rate or recommend schools. I publish the official boundary and link to independent third-party data so you can compare for yourself.

District names and boundary contacts on this page checked August 2026

Two sources cover South Dakota districts and schools: GreatSchools and Niche. Their scores change as new data is published, and attendance boundaries do not follow city lines in this region, so a score attached to a district name does not tell you which school a given parcel attends. The district office does.