Case Study: Rapid City Area Schools achieves streamlined, cost-efficient operations with Skyward

Rapid City Area Schools - Customer Case Study

Rapid City Area Schools (enrollment: 13,369) faced the challenge of managing district-wide student and business operations without fragmenting data or ballooning administrative overhead. Rather than adopt the state‑sponsored student system, the district continued using Skyward’s Student Management Suite (since 2000) alongside Skyward’s School Business Suite (since 1985) to provide a single, integrated platform that covers grades and attendance, HR, accounting, food services and more.

Skyward implemented a unified, cloud‑hosted database and ongoing update model that streamlined workflows, improved data accuracy and provided disaster‑ready access. The district now supports Skyward with just three staff members (vs. multiple systems and dedicated managers at other districts), gains granular reporting for budgeting and scheduling decisions, receives regular product enhancements, and uses Skyward’s Family Access to boost parent engagement—resulting in fewer surprise issues and reduced parent/teacher conference attendance.

Rapid City Area Schools

Timothy Mitchell

District’s superintendent