Best Public Schools in Zip Code 56071

ZIP code 56071 covers New Prague, Minnesota, a single-district community where six schools serve roughly 3,449 students from prekindergarten through 12th grade. All of them belong to New Prague Area Schools, which ranks 114th of 458 Minnesota districts — 75th percentile, 4 stars. Enrollment is top-heavy: New Prague Senior High (1,315 students) and New Prague Middle School (926) hold 65% of the ZIP total, fed by two similarly sized elementaries, Falcon Ridge (519) and Raven Stream Elementary (542), plus two small specialty campuses, Central Education Campus (105) and Compass Learning Center (42).

The secondary schools are the clear standouts. New Prague Senior High ranks 65th of 473 Minnesota high schools (86th percentile, 4 stars), with a 95.0% graduation rate against the state's 84.9%, a 1.6% dropout rate against the state's 4.2%, and science and 11th-grade math results far above state levels. Its reading figure, 42.2%, is the only one in the ZIP below both district and state. New Prague Middle School ranks 71st of 546 (87th percentile, 4 stars) and beats the state in math and reading at every grade. Among elementaries, Falcon Ridge outperforms Raven Stream Elementary — 62nd versus 52nd percentile, with 3rd-grade reading of 58.8% against Raven Stream's 35.4%, the widest same-grade gap in the data.

Three things are worth watching. Every ranked school has slipped from its 2023–24 peak, so the ZIP-wide trend is downward rather than isolated. Math is a consistent strength across all four tested schools, while science is split — excellent at the high school, below state at both elementaries — meaning the district's 30.9% science figure overstates K–12 strength. Class sizes also jump sharply, from 13.8–16.5:1 in the elementaries to 22.9 and 23.4 in the middle and high schools. Finally, the data is thinnest where students are neediest: Compass Learning Center's test scores are suppressed by the state and Central Education Campus reports no academic data, though Compass's 45.24% free/reduced lunch and 93.3% graduation rate stand out.