Summary
North Woods Elementary is a PK–6 school in Cook, MN, in rural St. Louis County, serving 234 students in the St. Louis County School District, with about 50% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch in 2024-25, and no other schools within 20 miles for direct comparison.
The key pattern is a steady, multi-year decline. North Woods fell from the 81st percentile of Minnesota elementary schools in 2020-21 to the 27th percentile in 2025-26 — a 54-percentile-point drop and a move from 4 stars to 1 star. The pandemic-disrupted 2020-21 and 2021-22 years may exaggerate the peak, but the slide from 2018-19’s 41st percentile to 27th is real. The district itself ranks 323rd of 458 districts statewide (29th percentile, 1 star), so North Woods is not an outlier within its district, though its decline is steeper. In 2025-26, math was the one relative bright spot: 35.7% proficient, above the district’s 31.7% but below the state’s 44.9%. Reading was the clear weakness: 36.5% proficient, below the district’s 40.8% and the state’s 48.6%, and down 17.4 points in two years. Science fell from 61.3% in 2022-23 to 14.7% in 2025-26, though it is tested only in 5th grade, so a small cohort can swing the number. The student-teacher ratio also rose from 10.2 in 2023-24 to 12.2 in 2024-25.
Grade-level results show a widening gap as students move up. Third graders performed close to state norms, while 6th graders were far behind: 20.6% proficient in math versus 39.5% statewide, and 23.5% in reading versus 53.4% statewide. That pattern suggests students begin near par and lose ground inside the school. Every measured student group also moved downward, including low-income students at the 24th percentile, female students at 27th, male students at 25th, and special education students at 20th. The bottom line for parents: math is comparatively stable, reading is the acute weakness, and the weakest grades are 4th through 6th. Useful questions: the reading program, the widening grade-level gap, and the 2024-25 jump in students per teacher.
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