Summary:
Elementary schools in the Willmar Public School District include three PK–5 campuses — Kennedy Elementary, Lakeland Elementary School, and Roosevelt Elementary — serving about 1,875 students in Willmar, Minnesota, an average of roughly 625 per school. The district ranks 331 of 458 statewide, at the 28th percentile with 1 star, but the three schools perform quite differently from one another.
Roosevelt Elementary is the strongest of the group: it holds the best 2025–26 rank (567 of 869, 35th percentile, 2 stars), the highest all-grade math proficiency at 46.3% — above both the district (38.8%) and state (44.9%) — and the lowest free/reduced lunch rate at 64.48%. It is also the only school whose rank percentile improved each of the past three years (30th to 33rd to 35th), though its science score fell sharply, from 27.47% to 17.9%. Kennedy Elementary is the largest school with 672 students and showed the broadest improvement, gaining in math (37.95% to 41.2%), reading (30.92% to 40.4%), and science (10.81% to 18.2%). Lakeland Elementary School faces the clearest challenges: the lowest rank (731 of 869, 16th percentile, 1 star), the lowest proficiency in all three subjects, the highest free/reduced lunch rate (72.23%), and the highest student/teacher ratio (13.3).
Across the group, only Roosevelt's math score tops the state average. All three schools trail the state in reading and science, with reading gaps ranging from about 8 points at Kennedy and Roosevelt to 18 points at Lakeland. Math results are more mixed: fifth-grade math is a bright spot at Kennedy (54.5%) and Roosevelt (52.6%), both above the state's 41.9%, while fourth-grade math is weak at Kennedy (25.6%) and Lakeland (23.1%). Poverty rates are highest where outcomes are lowest, though the pattern is not perfectly consistent.
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