Middle Schools in Spectrum High School

Middle schools in the Spectrum High School district in Minnesota include two schools — Spectrum Middle School, serving grades 6–8 with 291 students, and Spectrum Elementary School, which serves grade 5 only with 147 students — together enrolling 438 students in grades 5–8. The district ranks 59th of 458 in Minnesota, placing it in the 87th percentile with a 4-star rating.

Reading is the clearest strength across both schools. Spectrum Elementary posted 64.5% reading proficiency in 2025–26, which is 15.9 points above the state and 5.8 points above the district, while Spectrum Middle reached 58.8%, or 10.2 points above the state. At Spectrum Middle, reading is above the state in every tested grade, and the school’s state rank improved from 160th in 2023–24 to 135th in 2025–26, returning to the 75th percentile and 4 stars. Its all-grades math also rose from 31.32% to 39.4% year over year, even as district and state math were flat or slightly down.

Science is the main concern: Spectrum Middle scored 14.2% and Spectrum Elementary 14.5%, both roughly 11 points below the state’s 25.5% and well under the district’s 23.5%. Spectrum Middle’s 8th-grade math was 27.9% versus 42.3% statewide, a 14.4-point gap. Spectrum Elementary’s math fell 12.36 points, from 46.26% to 33.9%, leaving it 11 points below the state. Context metrics are nearly identical at both schools — free/reduced-price lunch around 15% and student-teacher ratios of 16.7 and 16.8 — so the differences appear tied to grade level or instruction. Spectrum Elementary serves only grade 5, so comparisons with the 6–8 middle school are not perfectly equivalent.