Summary:
ZIP code 56081 covers St. James, Minnesota, where two public schools in the St. James Public School District serve about 1,068 students: St. James Northside Elementary for grades K–5 (502 students) and St. James Middle/High School for grades 6–12 (566 students). There are no standalone middle or alternative schools. The district ranks 256th of 458 Minnesota districts — the 44th percentile — and carries a 2-star rating, which both schools share.
St. James Northside Elementary is the academic bright spot. Its all-grade math proficiency of 53.0% is 10.3 points above the district (42.7%) and 8.1 points above the state (44.9%), and it improved sharply from 2024–25 to 2025–26 in math (+10.76 points), reading (+7.42) and science (+12.44). Its rank climbed from the 28th percentile to the 43rd, recovering from 1 star to 2. St. James Middle/High School is more mixed: 8th grade math (47.4%) beats the state (42.3%), but 11th grade math is 19.7% vs. the state's 35.3%, and its rank has drifted from the 47th to the 44th to the 38th percentile. Most concerning, the graduation rate is 69.1% against the state's 84.9%, and the dropout rate is 18.5% versus the state's 4.2% — more than four times higher.
Reading and science are shared weaknesses. Both schools' all-grade science proficiency sits around 18.5–18.6% versus the state's 25.5%, and reading is 41.9% at the elementary and 40.6% at the middle/high versus 48.6% statewide. Fourth grade reading at the elementary, 31.3% vs. 48.8%, is a notable weak point. Notably, the elementary posts stronger math results despite a higher free/reduced lunch rate (58.96%) than the middle/high (53.53%), suggesting poverty alone does not explain the difference. Both schools also serve majority economically disadvantaged populations, with student/teacher ratios of 13.3 and 14.2.
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