Summary:
Fosston, Minnesota has two public schools serving a combined 596 students, both in the Fosston Public School District: Magelssen Elementary for grades PK–6 (340 students) and Fosston Secondary for grades 7–12 (256 students), with no separate middle school. The district ranks 153 of 458 in Minnesota, placing it in the 67th percentile with 3 stars.
Fosston Secondary is the stronger and more stable of the two, ranked in the top quartile of Minnesota high schools in each of the past three years (75th, 77th and 75th percentile, 4 stars). Its 2024–2025 graduation rate of 92.3% is well above the state's 84.9%, though its 7.6% dropout rate is also above the state's 4.2%. Grade-level bright spots include 11th-grade math (47.1% proficient vs. state 35.3%), 10th-grade reading (51.4% vs. 42.5%) and 8th-grade reading (56% vs. 50%). The concerns are math overall (33.7% vs. district 45.8% and state 44.9%) and the middle grades, where 7th-grade math is 27% (state 40.3%), 8th-grade math is 34% (state 42.3%) and 8th-grade science is 14% (state 16.7%).
Magelssen Elementary posts strong all-grades math (53.3%) and reading (52.9%), both above district and state, with an exceptional 4th grade: 79.2% proficient in math and 70.8% in reading. But science is far below state at 10% (state 25.5%; 5th grade 10% vs. state 25.9%), and its rank has slid from the 72nd to the 62nd to the 54th percentile, dropping from 4 stars to 3. Reading also slipped at every level, and the sharpest declines were elementary science and secondary math. Science is the clearest shared weakness across both schools and the district (17.9%).
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