Summary:
Iron, Minnesota is home to two schools — Cherry Elementary (grades PK–6, 297 students) and Cherry Secondary (grades 7–12, 273 students) — both in the St. Louis County School District and both listed at the same address, giving the area a combined enrollment of 570 students on what appears to be a shared campus. There is no separate middle school, so grades 7–8 sit inside Cherry Secondary even though it is classified as a high school.
Cherry Elementary is the stronger school academically and has been improving: its state rank moved from the 45th percentile in 2023–2024 to the 59th percentile (358 of 869) with 3 stars in 2025–2026. It outperforms the district in all three subjects and beats the state in reading (52.1% vs 48.6%) and science (35.9% vs 25.5%), while math (43.6%) is just under the state's 44.9%. Its science result is especially striking — more than double the district's 17.1%, and a large jump from 21.05% the prior year. That stands out in a district ranked 323 of 458, at the 29th percentile with 1 star.
Cherry Secondary tells a different story. Its 2024–2025 graduation rate of 93.7% beats the district (93.2%) and state (84.9%), with a dropout rate of 4.1% in line with the state's 4.2%. Yet its academic rank has slipped from the 35th percentile to the 14th (408 of 473, 1 star), and all-grade proficiency is below the state in math (27.8%), reading (41.9%), and science (6.8%, down sharply from 29.69%). Its End of Course science score is suppressed by the state, so that part of the picture is unknown rather than a confirmed weakness. Notably, Cherry Elementary has the higher free/reduced-lunch rate (38.05% vs 32.6%) and lower student/teacher ratio (12.8 vs 15.2), so the proficiency gap between the two schools is not explained by poverty alone.
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