Summary:
ZIP code 55705, which covers Aurora in northern Minnesota's Iron Range, has exactly one high school: Mesabi East Secondary, a grades 7–12 school with 392 students in the Mesabi East School District. Because it is the only high school in the area, there are no local peers to compare it with, so the useful benchmarks are its own district and the state of Minnesota.
Mesabi East Secondary has been on an upswing in school rankings. In 2024–2025 it placed 259th of 450 schools — the 42nd percentile with 2 stars — and in 2025–2026 it rose to 181st of 473, or the 62nd percentile with 3 stars. That is a 20-point percentile gain and puts the school well ahead of its own district, which ranks at the 40th percentile with 2 stars. Graduation results are another positive: 88.0% of students graduate, above Minnesota's 84.9%, though the dropout rate of 4.4% is slightly higher than the state's 4.2%. High school-level academics show real bright spots — 10th grade reading (43.4% vs. 42.5% statewide) and End-of-Course science (36.4% vs. 35.0%) both beat the state, and 11th grade math (34.1% vs. 35.3%) is nearly even.
The clearest concerns sit in the middle school grades. Eighth grade math proficiency is 16.9% against 42.3% statewide, and 8th grade science is 3.1% against 16.7% — the lowest figures in the dataset. Across all grades, math reaches 26.5% versus 44.9% statewide, reading 40.9% versus 48.6%, and science 18.3% versus 25.5%. Year over year, math held roughly flat (26.71% to 26.5%), reading edged up (40.22% to 40.9%), and science fell sharply (25.0% to 18.3%), a decline the district and state also experienced. With 46.68% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch, these gaps deserve context, and no test scores were suppressed in this data.
Thank you for your feedback!