Oak Grove Middle, Bloomington MN

Original Research by School Decision on Oak Grove Middle

Oak Grove Middle serves sixth through eighth graders in Bloomington, a large Minneapolis suburb shaped by a post-World War II housing boom and now a mix of residential neighborhoods and major commercial corridors. The school is one of several middle schools within the Bloomington Public School District, which the city’s families know as ISD 271. Bloomington lacks a traditional downtown, and its school facilities are spread across the city rather than clustered around a single civic core. The district has in recent years expanded its offerings with New Code Academy, a fully online K-12 option that any Minnesota family can choose, and the Bloomington Career and College Academy, which lets high school students earn college credit while still enrolled. A Computer Science Immersion program, run in partnership with the University of Minnesota, integrates computer science across subject areas at the elementary and middle levels, and that program is active at Oak Grove.

The school’s enrollment is moderate for a middle school. The student body is diverse. White students make up roughly half the population, with smaller shares of Hispanic, Black, Asian, and multiracial students. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Information on the percentage of students receiving special education services or classified as English learners was not available, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about how it supports those populations.

On state assessments, Oak Grove’s performance varies by subject and grade. In math, proficiency rates sit below the midpoint across all three grades, with a dip as students move from sixth to eighth grade. In English language arts, sixth graders score notably higher, but the seventh and eighth grade rates drop substantially. Science, tested only in eighth grade, shows a lower proficiency rate, though it is worth noting that the state changed the science assessment and its scoring criteria recently, which makes direct comparisons to prior years unreliable. Across all tested subjects and grades combined, Oak Grove’s overall proficiency sits above the midpoint relative to other districts in Hennepin County. That county-level comparison includes a wide range of schools, from very high-performing to those with much lower results, so the “above the midpoint” position places Oak Grove in the upper half of a large and varied set of school districts. Still, the year-over-year trend data only covers a single year, so there is no basis to say whether performance is moving upward or downward. A parent interested in academic growth over time would want to check with the school for trend data from prior years.

The school is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet, and there is no information available on whether it receives Title I funding or how discipline, staffing, or attendance look. Those gaps may be worth following up on directly.

Bloomington itself is a car-oriented suburb with four major freeways and light rail access from the Mall of America to downtown Minneapolis. About a third of the city is parkland, including large natural areas along the Minnesota River valley. Housing values in the area are above the national median, and rents have been rising moderately. The city’s population has shown a slight decline since the 2020 census, and the primary development focus is the South Loop district around the Mall. For a family considering Oak Grove, the key questions are likely around the drop-off in reading proficiency between sixth and seventh grade, the limited available data on special populations and school environment, and whether the district’s newer online and career-pathway programs affect the middle school experience. The school serves a broad and diverse community, and its overall test results sit in the middle to upper-middle range of a large metro county, with the sixth-grade English results as a relative high point.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 639%

School 39% · District 36% · ▲ 3 pts above district

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

Grade 735%

School 35% · District 35% · ▲ 1 pts above district

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

Grade 833%

School 33% · District 38% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 658%

School 58% · District 53% · ▲ 5 pts above district

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

Grade 737%

School 37% · District 37%

▲ 1 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 834%

School 34% · District 38% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Science

Grade 820%

School 20% · District 19% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

This schoolBLOOMINGTON 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-income42%Higher-income70%28 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income19%Higher-income47%28 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income13%Higher-income47%33 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income18%Higher-income54%36 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income18%Higher-income45%27 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income14%Higher-income44%30 pp gap