Red Lake Middle School

Red Lake Middle School is a grades 6–8 school in Redlake, MN, serving 268 students as part of the Red Lake Public School District, and available data show no other schools within 20 miles. In 2025–2026, it ranked 541st of 546 Minnesota middle schools—1st percentile—and earned 0 stars. This is not a one-year dip: it has been in the bottom 1–6% of the state every year shown since 2015–2016, with its best recent showing at 6th percentile in 2017–2018.

Academically, 2025–2026 all-grade proficiency was 1.3% in math, 6.9% in reading, and 1.4% in science. Those results are far below state averages (44.9% math, 48.6% reading, 25.5% science) and also below the district’s already low averages (5.1% math, 11.4% reading, 3.7% science). Grade-level results show the same pattern: 8th-grade math was 0%, while the highest cell, 8th-grade reading at 13.2%, was still below the district’s 15.8% and roughly 37 points below the state’s 50%. Reading has fallen from 11.24% in 2022–2023 to 6.9% in 2025–2026, and science has declined from 2.63% to 1.4%. With about 90 students per grade, single-year swings should be read cautiously, but the bottom-tier pattern is persistent.

Context matters: 83.21% of students received free/reduced lunch in 2024–2025, down from 87.86% in 2022–2023, and the student-teacher ratio improved from 21.0 to 18.9. Those are positive operational signs, but proficiency has not improved with them. Subgroup rankings are at or near the bottom for major populations: low-income students and male students ranked in the 0th percentile, while female students and special education students ranked in the 1st–2nd percentile. The only non-bottom-decile subgroup result came from homeless students (11th of 15, 27th percentile, 2 stars in 2021–2022), but it is older and based on a small group. Overall, this is an extreme low-performing school by state and district measures, with improvement needed most in math, reading, and science.