PINE RIVER-BACKUS HIGH SCHOOL

PINE RIVER-BACKUS HIGH SCHOOL is a secondary school of reasonably sized scale in PINE RIVER, Minnesota, overseen by PINE RIVER-BACKUS SCHOOL DISTRICT, teacheing 371 students in grades 7 through 12.

Across the 3 schools in PINE RIVER-BACKUS SCHOOL DISTRICT (906 students total), PINE RIVER-BACKUS HIGH SCHOOL accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

For racial and ethnic makeup, PINE RIVER-BACKUS HIGH SCHOOL shows that 93% of students identify as White, making the school strongly White-majority. Other groups include 3% multiracial. By comparison, Cass County as a whole is about 81% White, so the school skews noticeably more White than its surroundings.

Looking at the economic backdrop, On paper, PINE RIVER-BACKUS HIGH SCHOOL has 26 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 14.3:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 16.3:1 average. Roughly 56% of students at PINE RIVER-BACKUS HIGH SCHOOL qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, PINE RIVER-BACKUS HIGH SCHOOL performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 34.9%, the actual is 26.6%, a residual of -8.3 points.

In the broader community, community-level numbers for Cass County indicate the typical household earns roughly $68,874 per year, roughly 26% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 9%. PINE RIVER-BACKUS HIGH SCHOOL is one of 21 public schools in Cass County (combined enrollment of about 4,570 students).

Nearest neighbor: PINE RIVER-BACKUS ELEMENTARY, around 0.1 miles off. 2 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 6 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), PINE RIVER-BACKUS HIGH SCHOOL ranks 6th on composite proficiency, below the local average of 50.4%.

Geographically, the school is in a countryside area.

Looking at the recent track record. Over the past 7-year window, the student count grew 3%: 360 students in 2018 compared to 371 in 2025.

On this page, recent activity here tends to focus on open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.