Albany Area Middle School, Albany MN

Original Research by School Decision on Albany Area Middle School

Albany Area Middle School, part of the Albany Public School District, serves students in grades six through eight in a small, car-dependent city in Stearns County, roughly twenty miles west of St. Cloud. The school is a regular public school, and its nearly all-white student body reflects the racial composition of the surrounding community. A modest share of students come from low-income households, based on eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch.

The school shares a campus with the district's high school and elementary school, with the middle and high schools housed in the same physical building. A recently passed bond referendum funded facility improvements across the district, including a new early learning center and additions at the high school and elementary school, which will shape the learning environment in the years ahead. The same referendum also added a community center and theater to the school campus, reinforcing it as a civic hub separate from the traditional downtown Railroad Avenue corridor.

On state assessments, Albany Area Middle School shows a pattern of performance that is solid in math and mixed in reading. In math, a clear majority of students at each grade level, sixth through eighth, met proficiency standards. The seventh-grade cohort performed similarly to the sixth-grade cohort, and eighth graders were slightly below those levels. In English language arts, the sixth-grade class showed a strong majority proficient, while the seventh and eighth-grade cohorts fell below that mark, with just over half of students and just below half of students meeting the bar, respectively. These results combine so that the school's overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades places it in the top quartile relative to other districts in Stearns County.

Science testing at the eighth-grade level paints a different picture. The proficiency rate is low, and the assessment and cut-score have changed, making direct comparisons to prior years unreliable. A parent may want to ask the school how science instruction is being strengthened and whether the current result is a baseline after a new test.

The school does not yet have a reliable multi-year academic trendline, as only the most recent year's data was available for this school. There is also no information reported on chronic absenteeism, discipline rates, or staffing ratios. The four-year graduation rate does not apply to a middle school.

The community context is modest and stable. Albany is a small city with a mix of residential and commercial uses, anchored by health care, manufacturing, and construction. The Lake Wobegon Trail, a paved recreational path, runs through town, and a city-owned golf course with a driving range is a local amenity. Housing values are comparable to state benchmarks, and the broader economic context shows low unemployment nationally, though local figures are not broken out here.

For a family considering this school, the core picture is a middle school in a small rural-serving city with academic performance that is a strength in math but uneven in reading, with a distinct soft spot in eighth-grade science. The district is actively investing in its facilities. The student body is predominantly white and economically mixed, with a less diverse peer environment than state averages. A parent may want to explore how the school supports students who are not yet meeting reading standards, especially as they move through the middle grades, and what the school's plans are for science instruction at the eighth-grade level.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 664%

School 64% · District 64%

▲ 36 pts above state median · ▲ 40 pts above county median

Grade 763%

School 63% · District 63%

▲ 38 pts above state median · ▲ 45 pts above county median

Grade 857%

School 57% · District 57%

▲ 32 pts above state median · ▲ 40 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 665%

School 65% · District 65%

▲ 19 pts above state median · ▲ 25 pts above county median

Grade 753%

School 53% · District 53%

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▲ 23 pts above county median

Grade 851%

School 51% · District 51%

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 25 pts above county median

Science

Grade 818%

School 18% · District 18%

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

This schoolALBANY PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 6Lower-income50%Higher-income68%18 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income50%Higher-income54%4 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income47%Higher-income52%5 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income43%Higher-income69%26 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income56%Higher-income65%9 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income30%Higher-income64%34 pp gap