Best High Schools in Zip Code 55056

Zip code 55056 is home to four high schools serving grades 6 through 12, with a combined enrollment of 913 students, and the area is dominated by one large comprehensive high school alongside three small alternative or specialized programs. North Branch Area High School enrolls 791 students in grades 9–12 and accounts for roughly 86.6% of all students in this group. The remaining three — Distance Learning Academy Secondary (52 students, grades 6–12), Norse Area Learning Center (41 students, grades 7–12), and Chisago County Schools' Life Work C (29 students, grades 9–12) — are much smaller. The first three are part of North Branch Area Public Schools; Chisago County Schools' Life Work C belongs to the St. Croix River Education District. Two of the small programs share the same Lincoln Trail address, suggesting a clustered alternative-learning campus.

North Branch Area High School stands out for completion outcomes: a 93.0% graduation rate, above the district's 86.2% and the state's 84.9%, and a 1.7% dropout rate versus 4.2% for both district and state. Its latest rank is 319 of 473 (33rd percentile, 2 stars), up from the prior year's 21st percentile. Test proficiency, however, trails the state in Math (17.1%), Reading (34.9%), and Science (22.4%), though Science is above the district's 18.7%. Distance Learning Academy Secondary shows a wide Reading–Math gap (40% Reading versus 5% Math) with a 66.6% graduation rate and a 22.2% dropout rate. Norse Area Learning Center reports the lowest outcomes: 45.0% graduation, 10.0% dropout, 5.3% Math, 11.8% Reading, and 0% Science.

Chisago County Schools' Life Work C has no rank, graduation, dropout, or test data in this extract, so its performance cannot be judged. Suppressed values at the smaller schools should be read as unknown, not as low performance. Overall, families see a two-tier set: one large school with strong completion results but below-state test scores, and small programs with weaker reported outcomes and limited data.