Summary:
ZIP code 56589 covers Waubun, Minnesota, and is home to two high schools serving grades 7–12 — Waubun Secondary (283 students) and Waubun Alternative Learning Center (31 students) — both part of the Waubun-Ogema-White Earth Schools district, with a combined enrollment of 314 students.
Although the two schools share a district and address, their profiles look very different. Waubun Secondary is the standout: its 90.0% graduation rate tops both the district (70.8%) and the state (84.9%), and its 6.6% dropout rate is well below the district's 14.5%. Its state rank also improved from 380 of 480 in 2023–2024 to 320 of 473 in 2025–2026, with its star rating rising from 1 to 2 stars. Waubun Alternative Learning Center, by contrast, reports a 38.8% graduation rate and a 27.7% dropout rate, along with 80.65% free/reduced lunch participation and a reported student-teacher ratio of 46.2 — a figure that is unusual for an enrollment of 31 and likely reflects alternative-program staffing or a reporting quirk rather than a literal classroom ratio.
On state tests, Waubun Secondary's all-grade proficiency sits close to district levels but below the state in every subject: math 24% vs. 44.9%, reading 30% vs. 48.6%, and science 15% vs. 25.5%. Its relative strengths include 8th grade reading (40.4%), science End of Course (33.3%), and 7th grade math (31.8%). Eighth grade science is a district-wide weak spot at 2.1% versus the state's 16.7%. For the Alternative Learning Center, most math and science scores are suppressed ("—") to protect student privacy, so those results are unknown — not evidence of low performance — and its only reported figure is 9.1% reading proficiency. Percentages at a school of 31 students can swing widely from year to year.
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