Sanmin Elementary School

Sanmin Elementary opened on April 1, 1916 under Japanese rule as "迪佳尋常小學校," built originally to serve Japanese settler families in the farming community then known as Sanmin (or "Diga"/"Mikasa"). Its history has been anything but simple: the school closed in 1934, reopened in 1939, was restored again in 1940, and was renamed multiple times before settling on its current name in 1968. In more recent years, Sanmin became one of the pioneering schools in Taiwan to convert to the KIST (KIPP-inspired) public-private partnership charter model, starting around 2018 — turning a century-old institution into a flagship site for rural education reform in Yuli's rice-growing valley.

三民國小創立於日治時期民國5年（1916年）4月1日，原名「迪佳尋常小學校」，最初是為服務當時稱為三民（或「Diga」、「三笠」）農業聚落的日本移民家庭而設立。學校的歷史頗為曲折：民國23年（1934年）一度停辦，民國28年（1939年）復校，民國29年（1940年）再度整頓，並歷經多次更名，直到民國57年（1968年）才確立現名。近年來，三民國小成為台灣率先轉型為KIST公辦民營實驗學校的先驅之一（約自2018年起），讓這所百年老校成為玉里稻作縱谷地區教育改革的指標學校。