Summary:
Albert Lea Public School District has one middle school, Southwest Middle, serving grades 6–7 with 486 students in Albert Lea, Minnesota. The district is ranked 353 of 458 districts in Minnesota, at the 23rd percentile with 1 star. Southwest Middle’s most recent rank is 380 of 546 schools, placing it at the 30th percentile with 2 stars—higher than the district overall, but still in the lower portion of state rankings.
Reading is Southwest Middle’s strongest relative area. In 2025–26, all-grades reading proficiency was 37.9%, above the district’s 33.7% and 10.7 percentage points below the state’s 48.6%. Seventh-grade reading was 37.1%, above the district’s 35.7% and only 6.4 points below the state. Math is the clear challenge: all-grades math was 22.7%, below the district’s 30.4% and 22.2 points below the state. Both 6th- and 7th-grade math scores were roughly 17 points below state averages. The school’s reading score is 15.2 percentage points higher than its math score, a wider gap than in the district (3.3 points) or state (3.7 points).
Southwest Middle improved more than the district and state in both subjects. From 2024–25 to 2025–26, math rose 5.08 percentage points at the school, compared with 2.65 points in the district and a slight decline statewide. Reading rose 3.95 points at the school, while district reading fell 3.70 points and state reading fell 0.99 points. Its rank moved from 421 of 519 in 2024–25 to 380 of 546 in 2025–26, with percentile rising from 19 to 30 and stars from 1 to 2. With 58.23% of students eligible for free/reduced lunch and a student-teacher ratio of 14.3, the school serves a majority economically disadvantaged population. Despite improvement, proficiency remains below state averages in every reported assessment, especially in math.
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