Summary:
In the Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart area of Minnesota, there is one high school, Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart Secondary in Hector, serving grades 6–12 with 245 students. Its district, Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart, is ranked 217th of 458 Minnesota districts, at the 53rd percentile with 3 stars. The school’s own recent rating is lower: in 2025–2026 it ranked 345th of 473 schools, at the 27th percentile with 1 star. That was down from 2024–2025, when it ranked 265th of 450, at the 41st percentile with 2 stars, though it matches 2023–2024’s 350th of 480, also 27th percentile and 1 star.
For parents, the clearest pattern is that middle grades are stronger than upper grades. In 6th grade math, 46.4% were proficient, above the state’s 39.5%; 7th grade reading was 50% vs. 43.5% state; 6th grade reading was 53.6% vs. 53.4%; and 7th grade math was 40% vs. 40.3%. But performance drops sharply later: 11th grade math was 9.5% proficient vs. 35.3% state, and 8th grade science was 3.2% vs. 16.7% state. All-grades science was 11.9% vs. 25.5% state, and all-grades math was 26.7% vs. 44.9% state.
All-grades reading is the strongest subject relative to state, at 46% vs. 48.6%, only 2.6 percentage points below. Still, the school declined year over year in math (-8.41 points), reading (-2.92 points), and science (-1.26 points). The district declined more, but the state declined less, so the school’s gap to state widened. Graduation rate is close to state—83.8% vs. 84.9%—but the dropout rate is 9.6% vs. 4.2% state, more than double, which is a major red flag. With 40.82% free/reduced lunch and a 14.9 student–teacher ratio, the school serves a population with socioeconomic needs, but the data still shows clear academic weaknesses in upper-grade math and science.
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