Plainview-Elgin-Millville Middle

Plainview-Elgin-Millville Middle is a grades 6–8 school in Elgin, MN, with 235 students, serving as the sole middle school in the Plainview-Elgin-Millville district in the Elgin community of southeastern Minnesota.

For parents, the big picture is a small school that has long punched above its weight but is now at a turning point. PEM Middle ranks 174th of 546 Minnesota middle schools (68th percentile, 3 stars) in 2025–26, down from a stable 82nd–84th percentile, 4-star band in recent years. Its 51.6% reading proficiency beats all four Rochester middle schools—John Adams Middle School, Willow Creek Middle School, Kellogg Middle School, and Dakota Middle School—and the state’s 48.6%. Math is 40.0%, also above every Rochester middle, but it fell 12.5 points in one year and now sits below the state average. Science is 16.3%, an 8th-grade-only result that swings widely because of small numbers; it is near Minnesota’s 16.7% 8th-grade baseline. Among nearby schools, Dover-Eyota Middle School ranks higher (80th percentile) with much lower poverty, while PEM’s advantage over larger Rochester schools comes without any poverty advantage.

Inside the building, math varies sharply by grade: 8th grade is 52.6% (above the state’s 42.3%), while 6th and 7th grades are 35.6% and 33.0%, below state. Reading is stronger across all three grades. The school’s overall decline occurred even as low-income and special-education students improved. Because PEM Middle is the district’s entire grade 6–8 population, the Plainview-Elgin-Millville district’s higher overall results come from its elementary and high school grades. The bottom line: this is a resource-efficient school that still outranks most Rochester middle schools in reading and math, but parents should watch the math regression and the wide grade-level gaps. It remains second of seven in its peer group, behind only lower-poverty Dover-Eyota Middle School, with less margin than a year ago.