Summary:
Zip code 56523, covering Climax, Minnesota, contains exactly one elementary school: Climax Elementary, a PK–5 building with 65 students in Climax-Shelly Public Schools. Because there is only one school here, there is no school-to-school comparison to make; the meaningful comparisons are this school against its own district, against Minnesota state averages, and against its own prior years.
Climax Elementary is a small, high-need school. About 73.85% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and the student–teacher ratio is a favorable 8.8 to 1. Proficiency trails the state in every subject tested. In 2025–2026, 20% of students were proficient in Math (state 44.9%), 17.1% in Reading (state 48.6%), and 9.1% in Science (state 25.5%). The school beats its own district in Math (20% vs. 13.5%) and is essentially level with it in Science, but falls below the district in Reading (17.1% vs. 22.4%). Reading is the widest relative gap — the school reaches roughly 35% of the state rate. Grade-level Math declines sharply from 3rd grade (36.4%) to 4th (23.1%) to 5th (0%), while Reading stays nearly flat across grades.
There is a modest upward signal: Math rose from 16.13% to 20% and Reading from 16.13% to 17.1% year over year, and the school's state rank improved from 833rd to 807th of 869. That still only partly recovers a steep drop from 2023–24, and the school remains in the bottom 10% of Minnesota elementary schools. The 2024–2025 Science figure was suppressed by the state, so no Science trend can be evaluated. Cohorts are tiny — roughly 11–13 students per grade — so a single student can shift a grade-level rate by about 8–9 points.
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