The top reported proficiency rate is 64% in Math. The lowest is 39% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Knoll Elementary
Knoll Elementary serves students from pre-kindergarten through sixth grade in Ortonville, a small rural county seat at the southern tip of Big Stone Lake along the South Dakota border. The community is slowly declining in population, with an aging demographic; the median age is around 47. The largest employment sectors are health care, retail, and educational services, and the city owns its own utilities. The elementary school shares a single building with Ortonville Secondary School, creating a K-12 campus at one address. The broader district, Ortonville Public Schools, recently received voter approval for a bond referendum to fund facility improvements including safety upgrades, HVAC replacement, new roofing, classroom renovations, a new cafeteria commons area, and an expanded agricultural and industrial shop space. Construction is planned across the 2025 and 2026 period. The district also adopted a new K-6 literacy curriculum beginning in the 2023-2024 school year, aligning with Minnesota's READ Act and marking a shift toward evidence-based reading instruction.
The student body is predominantly white. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Information on the share of students receiving special education services or classified as English learners was not available in the data. Beyond the state testing results described below, we looked for offerings such as pre-kindergarten, specials, or enrichment programs but found little program-level detail in the sources available, so that picture remains incomplete.
Academically, the school's state testing results present an uneven profile. In math, the share of students meeting proficiency standards was high in third grade and fourth grade, then dropped sharply in fifth grade and further in sixth grade. Reading proficiency results followed a different pattern: third grade and fourth grade were mixed, with a strong showing in fifth grade and a solid result in sixth grade. Science testing, which Minnesota administers only at fifth grade, showed a modest share of students meeting the standard. Compared with other districts in Big Stone County, Knoll Elementary's overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades placed in the top quartile of the small cohort of two. This is a narrow comparison set, so the position should be read with that context.
The data includes only a single year of state assessment results, so there is no multi-year trend available to show whether these performance levels are stable, improving, or declining. A parent may want to ask the school about year-to-year consistency, particularly given the steep drop in math proficiency between grades four and six. The school serves grades that are tested annually, so this gap is not explained by an absence of testing, and a family may wish to understand what supports are in place for students in the upper elementary grades.
Because Knoll Elementary does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report. Information on chronic absenteeism and discipline was also absent from the data.
In terms of housing context, home values in the area have risen at a pace well above the national rate, though the absolute price level remains below the state median. This suggests that for families moving into the district, housing affordability relative to the broader Minnesota market is a factor worth considering. The national mortgage rate environment and local property tax implications of the recent bond will also shape the total cost of living in Ortonville.
For a family, this is a school with pockets of strong academic performance, particularly in early elementary math and fifth-grade reading, alongside weaker results in upper elementary math. The small size and rural setting mean that class sizes are likely modest and that students move from elementary to secondary school within the same building. The district is actively investing in its physical plant and literacy instruction, which signals a commitment to improvement. A parent considering this school would want to talk with staff about how the school addresses the downward math trend in grades five and six, and what the day-to-day learning environment looks like beyond the test scores.
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