Summary:
The Forest Lake Public School District has four high schools serving about 1,999 students: Forest Lake Area High School (grades 9–12), Forest Lake Area Community School (6–12), Step (10–12), and Community School Credit Recovery (9–12). The district ranks 172nd of 458 Minnesota districts (62nd percentile, 3 stars), but enrollment is lopsided: Forest Lake Area High School enrolls 1,805 students — 90.3% of the high school total — while the three smaller schools together serve just 194 students.
Forest Lake Area High School is the standout. It earned 4 stars in 2025-2026, ranking 96th of 473 (80th percentile), up from 210th of 480 (56th percentile, 3 stars) in 2023-2024. Its 2024-2025 graduation rate is 88.7%, above the district (84.6%) and state (84.9%), and its dropout rate is 3.8%, below both. Science is especially strong: 58% proficient in Science End of Course versus 56.1% for the district and 35% for the state. Compared at the same grade level, 11th-grade math (40.6%) is above the district (38.7%) and state (35.3%), and 10th-grade reading (41.9%) is essentially at the district (41.0%) and just below the state (42.5%).
Forest Lake Area Community School sits at the opposite end: 0 stars in all three rank-history years, 436th of 473 (8th percentile) in 2025-2026, a 55.1% graduation rate (about 30 points below district and state), a 6.9% dropout rate, and very low scores — 3.7% math, 10% reading, 10.5% science, and 0% in 11th-grade math. Its free/reduced lunch rate is 48.67%, and Community School Credit Recovery's is highest at 52.94%, compared with 22.55% at Forest Lake Area High School. Note that Step reports no test, rank, graduation, or dropout data, and several scores are suppressed — those values are unknown, not zero.
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