Summary:
The Lake Benton Public School District has just one elementary school, Lake Benton Elementary, serving grades PK–6 to about 100 students in Lake Benton, Minnesota. Because it is the district’s only elementary school, its school-level results are also the district’s elementary results. The district ranks 95th of 458 in Minnesota, placing it in the 79th percentile with 4 stars.
In 2025–2026, Lake Benton Elementary ranked 248th of 869 Minnesota elementary schools, in the 71st percentile with 4 stars. In 2024–2025 it ranked 88th of 872 (90th percentile, 5 stars), and in 2023–2024 it ranked 110th of 881 (88th percentile, 4 stars). Math and reading are clear strengths. In 2025–2026, all-grade math proficiency was 67.9% versus the state’s 44.9%, and reading was 60.4% versus 48.6%. In 2024–2025, math was 75.51% versus 45.21%, and reading was 73.47% versus 49.59%. Science is the main weakness: 15.4% versus 25.5% in 2025–2026, and 23.08% versus 26.15% in 2024–2025. Grade-level results are uneven. Fifth- and sixth-grade math both reached 76.9%, far above state averages, and fifth-grade reading was also 76.9%. Fourth-grade math was 50%, 5.2 points below the state, while fourth-grade reading was 50%, only slightly above the state.
Context matters here. The school reported 36% free/reduced lunch and a student-teacher ratio of 8.3 in 2024–2025, which is relatively low. With only 100 students in PK–6, individual grades likely have small cohorts, so one or two students can shift a grade-level rate by roughly 7–8 percentage points; year-to-year swings should be read cautiously. From 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, math fell 7.61 points, reading fell 13.07 points, science fell 7.68 points, and the rank percentile dropped from 90 to 71. Even so, the school remains above state averages in math and reading and still ranks in the top 29% of Minnesota elementary schools. Its clearest academic concern is science, which trails the state in both reported years.
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