Summary:
ZIP code 56481 has just one elementary school: Verndale Elementary, a PK–6 school at 411 SW Brown St in Verndale, Minnesota, serving 253 students as part of the Verndale Public School District. About 41.5% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the student-teacher ratio is 11.8. Because it is the only elementary school in the area, there is no local school to compare it against, so the most useful comparison is how it stacks up against its district and the state.
Against those benchmarks, the school looks solid in reading and mixed elsewhere. It beats its district in math, reading, and science in both of the last two school years. Reading is the clearest strength: 51.6% of students are proficient, above the state's 48.6%. Third-grade math stands out at 73.8% proficient, 15.9 points above the state average, and fifth-grade reading is 62.5%, 8.0 points above the state. But math gets harder as students move up — 39.0% in 4th grade, 31.3% in 5th, and 17.9% in 6th, which is 21.6 points below the state. Science is the weakest area at 18.8%, 6.7 points below the state's 25.5%, though it is nearly double the district's 9.7%.
The school's state ranking has climbed from the 36th percentile in 2023–2024 to the 47th percentile in 2025–2026, still just below the midpoint and holding a 2-star rating. It is worth noting that with a few hundred students spread across PK–6, each grade has small numbers, so a single student can move a grade-level percentage by several points — the sharp swings between grades should be read with that in mind.
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