Best High Schools in Zip Code 56007

ZIP code 56007 covers Albert Lea, Minnesota, and its three high schools — Albert Lea Senior High, Albert Lea Area Learning Center, and Albert Lea Secondary Online Academy — all serving grades 6 through 12 and all part of the Albert Lea Public School District. Together they enroll roughly 1,346 students, but the split is very uneven: the Senior High has 1,196 students (about 89% of the total), the Area Learning Center 113, and the Online Academy just 37.

Albert Lea Senior High is the clear flagship and the only school here improving, climbing from the 38th to the 52nd state percentile (2 stars to 3 stars) over the last three reported years — 29 points above its own district's 23rd percentile, 1-star standing. It graduates 89.0% of students, above the state's 84.9%, but its all-grades proficiency trails the state by roughly 23 points in math and 20 points in reading. Its weakest area is 8th grade, scoring 15.5% in math, 21.8% in reading, and 6.1% in science, versus 42.3%, 50.0%, and 16.7% statewide. Albert Lea Area Learning Center sits in the bottom tier statewide (4th percentile, 0 stars), with a 38.1% graduation rate and a 22.2% dropout rate — over five times the state's 4.2%. Albert Lea Secondary Online Academy reports no rank, graduation, or dropout data at all.

Poverty tracks achievement closely: free/reduced lunch rises from 50.67% at the Senior High to 70.8% and 75.68% at the other two, while math proficiency falls from 21.7% to 3.7% and 7.7% — though the Online Academy's reading score of 28.6% matches the Senior High exactly. Note that some values are suppressed by the state and are unknown, not zeros, while the Area Learning Center's 11th-grade math result of 0% is a real reported figure. Because the two smaller schools have 113 and 37 students, their percentages shift easily and should be read as directional only.