Summary:
Hastings, Minnesota has 9 listed schools — 3 elementary, 1 middle, and 5 high-type schools — serving about 3,921 students combined, with most operating under Hastings Public School District (ranked 224 of 458 Minnesota districts, 51st percentile, 3 stars) and one, 917 Riverside School, belonging to Intermediate School District 917. Enrollment is highly concentrated: Hastings High School alone enrolls 1,301 students, roughly 94.9% of all high-type enrollment, while the other four high-type schools together have only 70 students.
The elementary schools are the academic strength of the area. Pinecrest Elementary is the standout, with the highest current rank percentile among Hastings schools at 78th percentile (4 stars), math proficiency of 65.6% and reading of 59.8% — both well above district and state averages — and gains in both subjects year over year. Christa McAuliffe Elementary also beats district and state in math (60.3%) and reading (54.5%), though its math score slipped from 68.25% in 2024-2025, and it has the lowest student/teacher ratio among regular schools at 13.3. Kennedy Elementary has a split profile: math of 53.8% is above state, but reading at 43.9% falls below district and state.
Hastings Middle School and Hastings High School trail state averages in most subjects, and science is the weakest area district-wide at 16.5% versus 25.5% statewide. Hastings High shows a split story: graduation is 95.6% and dropout 2.8%, both better than state, yet its rank percentile fell from 87th in 2023-2024 to 48th in 2025-2026. Small specialized settings such as Hastings Alternative Center and 917 Riverside School have extreme but non-comparable profiles, and suppressed data at HOA High School and Staars should be read as unknown, not as zero.
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