Summary:
There is exactly one middle school in the Perham-Dent Public School District: Prairie Wind Middle, located at 480 Coney St West in Perham, Minnesota. It serves grades 5–8 and enrolls 526 students, making it the only middle-grade option in the district, so families in this area will send their middle schoolers here. The school holds a 4-star rating in each of the last three school years, and the district overall ranks 74th of 458 Minnesota districts, in the 84th percentile. Even so, the school's own rank percentile has drifted down from 79 to 76 to 72 over 2023–2024 through 2025–2026, and the district's overall 84th percentile now sits above the school's 72nd.
Academically, reading is the school's clear strength. All-grade reading proficiency was 53.9% in 2025–2026 — 5.3 points above the state and 1.2 points above the district — with 8th grade reading at 59.9%, 9.9 points above the state and the highest grade-level result reported. The exception is 6th grade reading at 48%, the only reading grade below the state. Science is the biggest concern: 19.5% overall, 6 points below the state and 8.2 points below the district, with 5th grade at 24.3% and 8th grade at 15.7%, both below state. Math is mixed — 43.4% overall, 1.5 points below the state, but above state in 5th, 7th, and 8th grades and essentially even in 6th at 39% versus 39.5%.
Other context: the student-teacher ratio is 15.8, and 34.22% of students received free or reduced lunch in 2024–2025, suggesting roughly one in three students comes from a lower-income background. Math improved slightly year over year, while reading and science each slipped a bit. Overall, families can expect a solid, above-average 4-star school with strong reading results and a real need for growth in science.
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