City: Box Elder, SD

Category: Education

Telephone: (605) 923-0000

Address: 400 Patriot Dr.

Description: Named for the family that founded it in 1891, the Douglas School District started as a one-room school and expanded to meet the needs of military families who arrived when Rapid City Army Air Base—now Ellsworth Air Force Base—was built in 1942. Today, Douglas educates about 2,400 students a year from Ellsworth, the town of Box Elder, the surrounding rural area, and part of Rapid Valley.There are three elementary schools, each containing just two grades. Students attend Douglas Middle School for grades six through eight, then move on to Douglas High School, which in 1971 became first in the state to have an ROTC program. The air force discontinued its rating system for ROTC programs in 2000, but the Douglas High School program consistently garnered Honor Unit or Meritorious Unit awards before then, and it continues to be very popular among students.The school has an outstanding family and consumer sciences classroom with a progressive home economics and life-skills curriculum that’s a hit with both male and female students. In the building and trades classes, students are building houses that are for sale to the public. In one program sponsored by Cisco, students split up into teams to learn about computer networking, then compete to design a campus or office building with the most efficient network. The School-to-Work program has been implemented at all levels, from kindergarten through 12th grade, to help students “learn a living.” (On-the-job training doesn’t begin until the later grades.) Educators, parents, and other community members work together to improve education through the Douglas Community Partnership Council and the Curriculum Coordinating Committee.