The top reported proficiency rate is 41% in English language arts. The lowest is 13% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Blackduck Elementary
Blackduck Elementary serves students from prekindergarten through sixth grade in a regular public school setting in the small northern Minnesota town of Blackduck, about a half-hour drive northeast of Bemidji. The town, founded as a logging community and named for Blackduck Lake, has a modest commercial strip along Highway 71 and an identity rooted in outdoor recreation such as fishing, hunting, hiking, and snowmobiling. It is a compact place where the school, city hall, and downtown area sit near one another, and population growth has been modest over recent decades. The Blackduck Public School District houses both the elementary and high school in one building, and the district brief did not identify any recent major changes or initiatives a parent would want to track.
The school enrolls a little over four hundred students, making it a mid-sized elementary for its grade band. The student body is predominantly white, with a notable American Indian or Alaska Native population, smaller shares of students identifying as two or more races or Hispanic, and very few Black or Asian students. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which signals that the school serves a community with significant economic need. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was not available in the profile.
The academic picture comes from state testing in the 2024–25 school year and is uneven across grade levels and subjects. In math, proficiency rates varied widely. Fourth graders posted a rate that was among the stronger results in the building, while third graders were a little below the halfway mark. Sixth graders were below that, and the fifth-grade math proficiency was notably low. In English language arts, the fourth-grade result was again the strongest, with a little more than half of students meeting standards. The third-, fifth-, and sixth-grade results in reading were each a smaller share, with the lowest performance seen in third grade. The fifth-grade science proficiency rate was also low. Across all tested subjects and grades combined, the school’s overall proficiency index places it in the top quartile relative to other school districts in Beltrami County. That comparison is worth noting carefully; the county includes a range of settings, and being in the top quartile here does not mean the scores are high by an absolute standard—it means the school’s composite sits above the middle of the county’s districts. The variation within the building matters; a parent would want to understand why fourth grade stood apart from fifth in both math and reading, and what kind of instructional support is available for students who are not yet meeting benchmarks.
The school does not serve high school grades, so no graduation rate applies. Program offerings, course access data, staffing ratios, and chronic absenteeism numbers were not available in the profile, which limits a fuller picture of the school’s daily environment and supports. The housing market in the area is below the national median home value. The typical home in the Blackduck zip code is valued well under the national benchmark, and the estimated mortgage payment is less than the national median. Rents also tend to be lower than the national average.
For a family considering Blackduck Elementary, the core draw is a small-town, rural school in a community centered on the outdoors. The proficiency data shows a school with pockets of relative strength, particularly in fourth grade, but also real soft spots in fifth-grade math and science that a parent should explore directly with the school. The economic need in the student population is high. The building itself houses both elementary and high school students in one facility, which can affect the daily experience of younger children depending on how the shared space is managed. The comparison to other Beltrami County districts places the school in a favorable position within that local group, but the absolute performance levels invite follow-up questions about curriculum, intervention strategies, and how the school addresses the variation across grade levels.
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