Summary:
Brainerd Public School District contains two middle schools serving grades 5–8 — Forestview Middle with 1,626 students and Middle Level Alternative Program with 14 — totaling about 1,640 students, nearly all of them at Forestview. The district itself is rated 2 stars, ranking 249th of 458 (46th percentile), which places it mid-pack statewide.
The two schools look almost nothing alike. Forestview is the district's large, comprehensive middle school and has ranked in the top quartile of Minnesota middle schools for three straight years (130th of 546, 76th percentile, 4 stars in 2025–2026). Its strongest subject is reading, where all-grade proficiency was 55.9%, ahead of the district's 52.0% and the state's 48.6%, with 6th grade at 61.0% and 8th grade at 60.4%. Eighth grade math was also a bright spot at 52.7% versus 42.3% statewide. Its clearest weakness is science, at 21.3% — below both the district (26.2%) and the state (25.5%) — with 8th grade science at 15.6%. Middle Level Alternative Program sits at the opposite end: a 0-star rating, 2nd percentile (537th of 546), and 2025–2026 all-grade proficiency of 0% in math, 0% in science and 17.6% in reading. It also serves a much higher free/reduced-lunch population (71.43% vs. 39.54%) with a much smaller student–teacher ratio (7.0 vs. 15.5), suggesting a different, more intensive setting.
Parents should read the alternative program's numbers cautiously. With only 14 students and several suppressed grade-level scores, percentages swing sharply — its all-grade reading was 46.67% in 2024–2025 before falling to 17.6%. Overall, the district's mid-pack rating hides a wide internal split: a 4-star, top-quartile flagship in Forestview, and a tiny, high-need alternative program whose results rest on very few students.
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