May 13, 2026:
The Pierre, South Dakota, Public School District is one of 108 “Districts on the Rise” according to a research collaboration between the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University, and faculty at Dartmouth College.
This is the fourth year the “Education Scorecard” has used data from the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA) to track district-level changes in achievement across the United States. The Pierre School District was selected as a District on the Rise because both its math and its reading test scores are rising faster than similarly size schools in the state, including Douglas, Yankton, Mitchell, Watertown and Aberdeen.
According to the Scorecard, the Pierre Public School District– like districts across the country– saw declines in student performance during the pandemic. It says under the leadership of Superintendent Dr. Kelly Glodt and Director of Education Troy Wiebe, Pierre has “driven a steady recovery through an intentional strategy that braided together deep buy-in to the Professional Learning Community (PLC) model, an early transition to the science of reading, and a relentless focus on small-group intervention at the elementary level.”
Glodt talked about Pierre’s Education Scorecard results during the monthly school board meeting held earlier this week (May 11, 2026).
This year’s findings draw on data through the 2024–2025 school year and links state test results for roughly 35 million students in grades 3–8 to a common, national scale.
May 12, 2026:
The superintendent of the Pierre School District says preliminary information shows Pierre students had “really good” scores on statewide assessment tests this past year.
Dr. Kelly Glodt shared the information with the Pierre School Board during this week’s meeting (May 11, 2026).
Glodt said Pierre’s scores were so good, the District was asked to participate in a study being done by Harvard, which he admits he didn’t think was a legit request at first.
Glodt said the Harvard study is looking into National Assessment of Educational Progress– or NAEP– scores at schools around the country.
Glodt said the study results are supposed to be released Wednesday/tomorrow (May 13, 2026).
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