Marshall Public School District

Marshall Public School District in Minnesota serves about 2,548 students across five schools: two elementary schools (Southview Elementary for grades 2–4 and Park Side Elementary for PK–1), one middle school (Marshall Middle School, grades 5–8), and two high schools (Marshall High School, grades 9–12, and the much smaller Marshall Area Learning Center, grades 5–12). The Marshall Public School District is rated 2 stars and ranks 284 out of 458 Minnesota districts, in the 38th percentile — but that single rating masks large differences among its schools.

Marshall Middle School is the district's strongest school, holding 3 stars for three straight years with a rank percentile of 61. Its math proficiency is 51.9%, above the district (47.6%) and state (44.9%), and its 8th grade math score of 61.5% is the highest single proficiency figure in the data. Reading, though, is 40.9%, below the state's 48.6%. Southview Elementary is improving: its rank percentile rose from 37 to 47, and its reading (48.8%) and math (48.1%) are both above state averages. Marshall High School, the largest school at 886 students, has a bright spot in its 89.0% graduation rate, above both district and state, but its test scores fell sharply — from 3 stars to 2, with reading at 30.7%, math at 36.1%, and science at 23.6%. The Marshall Area Learning Center, just 76 students, faces the greatest challenges: a 63.16% free/reduced lunch rate, a 62.0% graduation rate, a 20.6% dropout rate, math at 15.8%, and science at 7.7%; its reading score is suppressed by the state, so it is unknown. Park Side Elementary serves PK–1 and has no state test data, which is expected, but it has the district's lowest student-teacher ratio at 8.6.

For parents, the main takeaways are that reading is a district-wide challenge — at 41.4%, below the state's 48.6% — and only Southview is above the state average. Science is also a general weak point, with the district at 22.8% versus the state's 25.5%. Math tends to be stronger in the lower grades, and Marshall Middle's math improves as students move up. Because the schools differ so much, it is worth looking at individual school results rather than the district's overall 2-star rating.