Summary
Sawtooth Mountain Elementary is a PK–5 school in Grand Marais, Minnesota, serving 203 students in Cook County Public Schools. The district ranks 233rd of 458 in Minnesota (49th percentile, 2 stars), while the school ranks lower: 629th of 869 for 2025–2026 (28th percentile, 1 star), placing it in the bottom third of Minnesota elementary schools.
For 2025–2026, proficiency is below state averages in every tested subject: math 29.4% vs. 44.9% statewide, reading 41.7% vs. 48.6%, and science 21.4% vs. 25.5%. The math gap is the largest, at about 15.5 percentage points, and it is concentrated in upper elementary — 4th grade math is 22.6% and 5th grade math is 17.9%, compared with state averages of 55.2% and 41.9%. The closest comparison school, Great Expectations, 0.37 miles away, is a K–8 school of 113 students in its own Great Expectations district. It outperforms Sawtooth in every all-grade subject: reading 72.3%, math 45.8%, and science 33.3%, with 5th grade reading at 100% versus Sawtooth's 50%. Great Expectations also serves a lower-poverty population (26.55% free/reduced lunch vs. 44.83%) and has a slightly smaller student–teacher ratio (9.3 vs. 10.2), so the comparison is not perfectly apples-to-apples.
Sawtooth did improve in 2025–2026, with math rising from 23.53% to 29.4%, reading from 38.37% to 41.7%, and science from 14.29% to 21.4% — though all three remain below the school's 2022–2023 results of 44.78%, 49.21%, and 57.14%. One bright spot: the low-income student subgroup ranked 253rd of 764 (67th percentile, 3 stars), a sharp jump from the 13th–14th percentile in the two prior years, suggesting the school may be more effective for some groups than its overall ranking implies. Meanwhile, Great Expectations has climbed from the 50th to the 83rd percentile over three years, while Sawtooth remains in the bottom third.
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