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Prior Lake High School

SAVAGE · MN · Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools · Public

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📚AP rigor: 90th percentile nationally 📖16 AP courses 🎓98% 4-yr grad rate

📋 At a glance

Programs & features
  • 📚 16 AP courses offered — Elite
  • ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
  • 🔢 10 calculus classes · 7 physics · 17 chemistry
Academic signals
  • 🎓 AP rigor: 90th percentile nationally
  • 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Top 3.9% by test-taker volume
  • 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 98% (Top 2.3% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)

Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.

💡

How Prior Lake High School compares for families

Standout academic depth by national standards.

  • StatewideAP rigor in the top 10% nationally with 16 AP courses.
  • LocallyMN students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+7 points).
  • vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Prior Lake-Savage Area ALC, Prior Lake Christian Academy, SWMetro Passageways and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.

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🎓 Academic rigor

AP + advanced-course offerings

Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth

90th percentile nationally

50th 90th ↑ this school
Less rigorMore rigorMost rigor
AP courses offered
16
Math ✓ · Science ✓
Advanced math classes
26
10 calculus · 16 advanced
Lab science classes
24
7 physics · 17 chemistry
Other rigor signals
✅ Dual-enrollment program

Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).

SAT / ACT participation

CRDC federal data · 2020-21

Top 3.9% by test-taker volume

50th 90th
SAT/ACT test-takers
670
11th-12th graders who took 1+ college admissions test
Test-taking intensity
23.5
takers per 100 students in grades 9-12
Compared against
18,426
US high schools reporting SAT/ACT participation

Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.

🎓 4-year graduation rate · federal EDFacts

What % of students graduate on time?

Top 2.3% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate

50th 90th
4-year graduation rate
98%
Single-point estimate
4-year cohort size
586
Students in the 9th-grade entry class tracked over 4 years
Compared against
17,988
US high schools reporting 4-year ACGR

Source: federal EDFacts ACGR (Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate), 2019 vintage via Urban Institute. EDFacts publishes a range (low-high) to preserve privacy on small cohorts; we display the midpoint.

👩‍🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC

Teacher experience & reliability

% inexperienced teachers (1st-2nd yr)
9.8%
Strong: experienced corps. New teachers rotate through but most have ≥3 years in.
% chronic teacher absence (≥10 days/yr)
3.9%
Strong attendance culture among teachers.

Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.

🏛️ Federal Title I context

Lower-need school

Not Title I eligible (FRPL < 25%)

17.9%
FRPL rate — % of students who qualify for the federal Free or Reduced-Price Lunch program. This is the underlying federal income-eligibility signal Title I designations are computed from (ESEA Sec. 1113).
0% (no FRPL) 35% TA · 40% Schoolwide 100% (universal FRPL)

<25% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. Well below the Title I threshold; expect a higher-income student body on average.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.

Chronic absenteeism

Share of students absent 15+ days
14.0%
Roughly average. The national post-COVID rate climbed to ~16% nationwide; this school is in the middle of the pack.
Students absent 15+ days
400
Federal definition: absent (excused or unexcused) for at least 15 of ~180 school days — about 10% of the school year.

Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the strongest early indicator of dropout, transfer-out, and family disengagement. A school's absenteeism trend forecasts its enrollment trend 1-3 years out. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.

Counselor capacity

Student : Counselor
476:1
Around the US median. Counselors are stretched but functional.
Counselor FTE
6.0
Full-time-equivalent school counselors on staff.
Teacher FTE
127
Full-time-equivalent classroom teachers.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020-2021. Counselor ratio = the school's most recent total enrollment ÷ counselor FTE. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a 250:1 maximum; the US national median across schools with on-staff counselors is roughly 430:1.

Enrollment trend & projection

Grade 12 went from 675 in 2021 to 715 in 2024 — over 3 years.
+5.9%

Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).

If the recent trend holds…

At its recent rate of -0.8%/year, projecting from 2024's 2,856 students:

2025
2,834
2027
2,791
2029
2,749

≈ 107 fewer students by 2029 — a real revenue/relevance risk worth getting ahead of.

An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.

Revenue at risk

At $14,794 per student in district revenue, the 107 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $1,582,958/year in funding at risk.

District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.

Nearby high schools — the local competition

The closest high schools families here also consider, and where their enrollment is heading.

SchoolTypeMilesHS enrollmentTrend
Prior Lake-Savage Area ALC
PRIOR LAKE
Public 1.5 75 -17.6%
Prior Lake Christian Academy
Prior Lake
Private 2.1 103 +53.7%
SWMetro Passageways
PRIOR LAKE
Public 3.9 1
Lakeville Shared Time Services
LAKEVILLE
Public 5.1 1
Out-of-State Care and Treatment
LAKEVILLE
Public 5.1
Children's MN - Lakeville
LAKEVILLE
Public 5.5 6
SWMetro Reflections
SHAKOPEE
Public 5.5 11
SWMetro Shakopee Transitions
SHAKOPEE
Public 5.5 63 +23.5%

For Parents

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