Summary:
Wheaton, Minnesota has two public schools — Pearson Elementary serving grades PK–5 and Wheaton Secondary serving grades 6–12 — both part of the Wheaton Area Public School District, together enrolling 352 students in a nearly even split of 177 and 175. The district is rated 316th of 458 districts in Minnesota, at the 31st percentile with 2 stars, and because there is no separately listed middle school or alternative school here, these two schools cover the full PK–12 span for the area.
Pearson Elementary is the stronger of the two in math and reading. Its all-grade math proficiency was 49.5%, above the district's 36.4% and the state's 44.9%, and its 3rd-grade results are a bright spot, with math at 64.5% and reading at 48.4%, both slightly above state figures. Even so, Pearson's math dropped from 64.56% the prior year, and science is a serious weakness: all-grade science proficiency was 3.4%, compared with the district's 11.5% and the state's 25.5%, and 5th-grade science was the same 3.4%.
Wheaton Secondary shows a completion-versus-proficiency paradox. Its 96.1% graduation rate and 0.0% dropout rate far outpace the state's 84.9% and 4.2%, yet math proficiency (23.4%), reading (35.5%) and science (16.3%) all trail state levels, and its rank slid from the 59th percentile with 3 stars to the 25th percentile with 1 star. Free/reduced-price lunch is similar at both schools (44.07% and 40.57%), so the performance gap is not explained by differing economic need. With fewer than 180 students in each building, year-to-year swings should be read with caution.
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