Summary:
The city of Harmony, Minnesota is home to two high schools: Fillmore Central Senior High and Fillmore Central ALP. While Fillmore Central Senior High is the larger and more prominent of the two, serving 277 students, both schools face academic and socioeconomic challenges that impact student performance and outcomes.
Fillmore Central Senior High has struggled with academic proficiency, scoring below the state averages in math, reading, and science on the MCA-III assessments. In 2023-2024, only 25% of 11th graders were proficient in math, compared to the state average of 34.99%. The school's four-year graduation rate of 93.7% is slightly above the state average, but its dropout rate of 3.1% is higher than the state's average. Additionally, Fillmore Central Senior High has a relatively high percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, at 32.85% in 2022-2023.
In contrast, Fillmore Central ALP, the smaller alternative high school, has an even higher rate of free/reduced lunch eligibility at 63.64%. This suggests that the Harmony community faces significant socioeconomic challenges, which may be contributing to the academic struggles observed at both schools. The district's provision of an alternative high school option indicates an effort to support students who may not thrive in a traditional high school setting, but the limited data available for this school makes it difficult to draw firm conclusions about its effectiveness.
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