Dakota Valley School District 61-8

What the Numbers Say About Dakota Valley School District 61-8

Dakota Valley School District 61-8 is a small school district in South Dakota, serving 1,372 students at an estimated per-pupil spending of $11,266. Estimated average teacher salary — derived from instructional expenditure variable Z33 divided by teacher FTE — is $65,663, placing the district in the lower-spending tier of NCES F-33 respondents. NCES LEAID 4636990 references the FY2022 Common Core of Data Local Education Agency Finance Survey.

Relative to the South Dakota statewide average of $67,949, teacher pay in Dakota Valley School District 61-8 runs slightly below the state benchmark — a 3.4% gap, and below the national instructional-salary estimate of $82,292 (20.2% differential). Among enrolling districts in South Dakota, it pays more than 36% of them. Licensing reciprocity, collective bargaining strength, and state aid formulas all contribute to where a district lands in these tiers.

On the budget side, Dakota Valley School District 61-8 reports $15.5M in total expenditure against $18.5M in revenue, with instructional salaries accounting for 39% of spending — a compensation-to-budget ratio that signals how much of each tax dollar reaches classroom educators. Regular-program teacher salary outlay is $4.2M, special-education teacher pay is $0.5M. These figures are district-level aggregates from F-33, not individual contracts — step-and-column schedules, stipends, and collectively-bargained differentials sit underneath these totals.