Buffalo Community Middle, Buffalo MN

Original Research by School Decision on Buffalo Community Middle

Buffalo Community Middle School serves sixth through eighth graders in the Buffalo-Hanover-Montrose district, and it is a large school for a middle school, with an enrollment that reflects the steady growth of the area. The school sits in Buffalo, a Wright County community about forty miles northwest of Minneapolis that combines a traditional downtown core with lakefront residential areas and highway retail corridors. The city has been growing for some time, and that growth is visible in the school’s size.

Academically, the school’s state testing results show a mixed picture. In math, proficiency rates rise across the grade levels, with the sixth-grade cohort below the seventh and eighth grades. In English language arts, the pattern is the reverse: the school’s strongest performance is in sixth grade, with rates declining each subsequent year. Science testing, which occurs only in eighth grade, records a substantially lower proficiency rate than either of the other subjects. Overall, the school’s combined proficiency across all tested subjects and grades sits below the midpoint among Wright County districts, a landscape of roughly a dozen district peers. A parent looking at these results may want to discuss with the school how the school supports students who arrive below grade level, especially given the downward trend in reading as students move through the middle grades.

The student body is predominantly white, which tracks with the broader community’s demographics. Roughly one in three students qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, a share that places the school in a middle range for economic diversity. Information about special education enrollment and English learner populations was not available in the data, so a parent with a child in either category would need to inquire directly with the school about available resources and staffing.

The school is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet, and it does not appear to have a Title I designation. No data was available on discipline rates, chronic absenteeism, or staffing ratios, which are common points of interest for families evaluating a middle school’s environment and supports. Those gaps are worth noting, and a parent may want to ask the school for its most recent report on those topics.

On the housing and community front, homes in Buffalo’s ZIP code are priced at a level roughly in line with the state average. Rents are moderate relative to incomes, and the overall cost of living is lower than in the core Twin Cities metro. The district itself recently passed a bond referendum for facility investments, a publicly reported decision that signals both community support for the schools and a long-term financial commitment from residents. Buffalo offers amenities that appeal to families, including two lakes, an extensive parks and trails system, a civics center with ice sheets, and a downtown that has received national recognition for its landscaping and tidiness. For a family looking at a mid-sized, growing exurban community with a large middle school that serves as the only public option for those grades, Buffalo Community Middle presents a straightforward choice, but the testing data and the missing information about discipline and staffing mean a thorough visit and conversation with the school would be worthwhile.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 635%

School 35% · District 35%

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

Grade 753%

School 53% · District 53%

▲ 29 pts above state median · ▲ 13 pts above county median

Grade 859%

School 59% · District 59%

▲ 33 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 657%

School 57% · District 57%

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

Grade 748%

School 48% · District 48%

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Grade 844%

School 44% · District 44%

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Science

Grade 824%

School 24% · District 24%

▲ 12 pts above state median · even with county median

This schoolBuffalo-Hanover-Montrose Schools, 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-income48%Higher-income61%14 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income27%Higher-income56%29 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income34%Higher-income48%14 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income20%Higher-income42%21 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income37%Higher-income59%22 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income49%Higher-income63%14 pp gap