Summary:
ZIP code 56161 contains one listed school — Heron Lake-Okabena Secondary, a high school serving grades 7–12 with 137 students — so it defines the entire secondary landscape here, since the area summary lists no elementary, middle, or alternative schools. The school belongs to the Heron Lake-Okabena School District, which ranks 338 out of 458 Minnesota districts, at the 26th percentile with 1 star. Because there is only one school in this ZIP code, the useful comparisons are between this school and its district, and between this school and Minnesota state averages.
Graduation is the school's relative strength: its 2024–25 graduation rate is 86.9%, above the state's 84.9% by 2.0 percentage points. However, its dropout rate is 13.0% against the state's 4.2% — roughly 3.1 times the state rate — suggesting students who finish do graduate, but many still leave without a diploma. Test proficiency is far below both district and state levels in 2025–26: math at 15.4% (state 44.9%), reading at 15.3% (state 48.6%), and science at 7.1% (state 25.5%). Reading shows the largest gap, more than 33 percentage points below the state, and the school trails its own district in all three subjects.
Results declined sharply from 2024–25 to 2025–26: reading fell from 32.69% to 15.3%, math from 24.53% to 15.4%, and science from 19.35% to 7.1% — far steeper than the slight statewide changes. The school ranked 390 out of 473 Minnesota high schools in 2025–26, at the 18th percentile with 1 star, down from the 28th percentile in 2024–25. About 45.26% of students were eligible for free or reduced lunch in 2024–25, and the student–teacher ratio was 13.6. Because grade 7–12 cohorts are small, individual grade-level percentages can swing widely from year to year.
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