SD education — public, home school, and one search for calendars.
The Monitor is a one-stop shop for South Dakota families and teachers: public-school briefs linked to source, alternative-instruction law in plain English, plus aggregated district calendars so you don’t open 150 tabs. Prairie Learner $1/mo or $10/yr unlocks the weekly brief, full calendar search, and board posting.
Written by southdakotaeducation.com Editorial Desk · Published 2025-08-10 · Updated · How we source & correct · [email protected]
Free tier: teasers + calendar demo (3). Prairie Learner $1/mo or $10/yr: full brief + calendar full + board post. Plains Guardian $5/mo: ad-light, archive, priority calendar requests. All tiers: source-linked, PayPal Checkout, portal cancel.
District briefs, linked
Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Pierre, Aberdeen, Watertown + more — enrollment, funding, start dates, linked to district or DOE source you can verify in one click.
Alternative instruction
SDCL 13-27 plain English — what to file, records to keep, testing windows, plus co-op fairs and network contacts for the kitchen table.
One search, not 150 tabs
Starts, breaks, co-op fairs — aggregated SD public + homeschool co-op calendars with source links. Filter by district or title.
Aggregated calendars — one search
SD public districts + homeschool co-ops. Try “Sioux Falls” or “Pierre” or “Homeschool”. Demo 7; full aggregate for members.
Source-linked. Not affiliated with SD DOE or any district. See About for method. API: /api/calendars?q= · /api/calendars?state=SD.
Live Wire — SD education briefs
5 sources · DOE · Legislature · Sioux Falls · Rapid City · HomeschoolAggregated SD education headlines — District, Homeschool, Board — teaser free, full detail gated $1. Source URL on every card.
Full_body_premium unlocks with Prairie Learner $1. Articles API: /api/articles?limit&category · /api/article/:slug paywall $1 · ingest: /api/ingest.
Board — SD education network
Parents, teachers, co-op leads — ask, share, coordinate. Posting gated at $1 Prairie Learner to keep signal high. Reading is free.
Homeschool network — plain English
Alternative instruction under SDCL 13-27 — filing, records, assessment, and co-op directory. Linked to DOE, not paraphrased.
What to file
Excuse from compulsory attendance, notification timelines, and where it actually lives at doe.sd.gov/homeschool. Checklist included for members.
- Alternative instruction notification — who & when
- Records to keep (hint: short list)
- SDCL 13-27 sections mapped to steps
Co-ops & contacts
Black Hills, Sioux Empire, Pierre area + more — fall fairs, curriculum swaps, field trips aggregated in Calendars.
- Black Hills Homeschool Co-op — Sept 12 curriculum fair
- Sioux Empire Homeschool Network — Sept 5 co-op & trips
- Statewide contacts via DOE link
Not legal advice. We link SDCL + DOE so you can verify. Corrections: [email protected].
Why trust this?
Linked, not claimed. Every calendar links its district page with published date; every homeschool summary links SDCL/DOE. You can verify in one click — no “trust us.”
Corrections in public. Error → top note with timestamp. Email [email protected]. We fix fast and label it.
No affiliation. Independent monitor — no DOE or district money. Subscriptions pay for aggregation time. 1-click Stripe Portal cancel from Account.
Why $1? Boards rot when free. $1 keeps co-op coordination useful and funds calendar aggregation. Plains Guardian $5 is ad-free + archive.
Weekly brief — one email, zero tabs
Prairie Learner $1 unlocksEvery Sunday: 5 district briefs + 2 homeschool notes + 7 calendar highlights — all source-linked. Members get full text + archive; free tier gets teaser & calendar preview.
District pulse
Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Pierre, Aberdeen, Watertown — enrollment shifts, funding notes, start/break changes. One paragraph + source.
Homeschool plain English
SDCL 13-27 updates, filing windows, co-op fairs — kitchen-table language with citation so you can verify at DOE in a tap.
Calendar roll-up
Next 14 days across districts + co-ops. Filter by district, save to calendar, never open 150 district sites again.
Subscribe on Pricing — $1/mo or $10/yr Prairie Learner, $5/mo Plains Guardian ad-free + archive. Cancel anytime via PayPal Portal on Account.
How we aggregate — and link
Not scraped-and-spun. Pipeline pulls 5 SD education RSS sources, hashes and dedupes by source_url, and stores slug/title/category/teaser/full_body_premium for gated detail. Calendars are sourced per-district and normalized to district/title/start_date/end_date/url.
Sources (education)
- SD DOE — doe.sd.gov (funding, policy, homeschool)
- SD Legislature Education — sdlegislature.gov (committee & bill notes)
- Sioux Falls Public — sf.k12.sd.us
- Rapid City Area Schools — rcas.org
- SD Homeschool Network — alternative instruction & co-ops
Integrity
- Every article stores
source_url+published_at— click to verify - Dedupe by
hash(source_url)— same link never dupes - Calendars carry district URL you can open
- Correction log public; email editor@…
Tech: /api/health gateway · /api/articles?limit&category · /api/calendars?q= · /api/ingest (5 sources, parseRss hash/dedupe).
FAQ — quick answers
Is this the newspaper?
No. Only Rapid City Gazette is newspaper. This is a clean education site — dashboard + library, not broadsheet. No double-rules, no masthead.
Do I need $5?
No. $1 Prairie Learner unlocks board posting + full calendar search + brief. $5 Plains Guardian is ad-free + archive for power users.
Why board gated at $1?
Free boards fill with spam. $1 keeps co-op coordination useful and funds aggregation. 10% of every payment accrues to charity ledger.
How do I cancel?
Pricing → Account → enter email → Stripe Billing Portal. One click, no dark pattern. Account
School-site trustworthy — not a tabloid
Warm, accessible, calm. We design like a district site, not a newspaper: rounded-lg cards, soft shadows, green accent #0f6f6a, generous whitespace, verified sources. No sensational masthead, no double-rules.
Accessible by default: 16px base, 1.6 line-height, high contrast ink on warm paper (#f9f7f2), focus rings in soft green, keyboard-navigable boards and calendar search.
Built for parents on phones at pickup — one thumb to search “Sioux Falls Homeschool” and see district + co-op together.
Linked verification: Title → source_url · Calendar → district URL · Homeschool → SDCL & DOE. If we summarize SDCL 13-27, we cite the section line so you can check.
Independent. Not DOE. Not a district. Subscription funds aggregation time, not influence.