Summary:
Zip code 56209 in Atwater, Minnesota contains just one school in this data set: A.C.G.C. Elementary, a PK–4 school with 369 students in the A.C.G.C. Public School District. The area summary lists 1 elementary, 0 middle, 0 high, and 0 alternative schools, so families here have a single elementary option and students move on elsewhere after grade 4. With only one school, comparisons are against the district, the state, and the school's own prior years rather than against a local rival.
Academics are a mostly encouraging picture. Math is the strongest signal: All Grades Math is 59.8% in 2025–2026, well above the district's 41.5% and the state's 44.9% — +18.3 points over district and +14.9 points over state. Both tested grades beat the state in math: 3rd grade 58.5% vs 57.9%, and 4th grade 61.3% vs 55.2%. Reading improved sharply overall, rising from 36.59% to 47.2% in one year while district reading rose only slightly and state reading declined. But the all-grade figure hides a big split: 4th Grade Reading is 58.1%, 9.3 points above state, while 3rd Grade Reading is 36.9% — 9.9 points below state and 21.2 points below the school's own 4th grade, the widest internal gap in the data. Note that reading rows switch from MCA-III to MCA-IV labeling, so read that gain with some caution.
The school's ranking jumped from 519 of 872 (40th percentile, 2 stars) to 364 of 869 (58th percentile, 3 stars). The district ranks 145 of 458 (68th percentile, 3 stars) using a different pool. About 53.66% of students qualified for free/reduced lunch in 2024–2025, with a student/teacher ratio of 11.5. The takeaway: strong math, much-improved reading, and 3rd grade reading as the area to watch.
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