Prior Lake Schools
Most of Prior Lake is in Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools (ISD 719). Here’s how the district is set up for 2026-27 and how its schools measure up.
My kids are coming up through the Prior Lake schools. This page covers what I’d want a family moving here to know: which school an address goes to, what changed this fall, how the schools score, and what’s on the ballot in November.
The district in 2026-27
Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools started the 2026-27 school year with 8,357 students. It serves most of Prior Lake and about half of Savage. This year it runs:
- Six elementary schools (K-5): Five Hawks, Glendale, Hamilton Ridge, Jeffers Pond, La ola del lago at WestWood (Spanish immersion) and Redtail Ridge.
- Two middle schools (6-8): Hidden Oaks and Twin Oaks, across Fish Point Road from each other.
- Prior Lake High School (9-12).
- Bridges Area Learning Center, the district’s alternative high school.
- Edgewood School, for early learning and preschool.
- Laker LAUNCH, a program for young adults with disabilities after high school.
Glendale, Hamilton Ridge and Redtail Ridge are in Savage, and Prior Lake High School has a Savage address too. Five Hawks, Jeffers Pond, La ola del lago, both middle schools, Bridges and Edgewood are in Prior Lake.
The district says it was the first in Minnesota to make every school an E-STEM school. E-STEM stands for environmental education, science, technology, engineering and math, and it runs from preschool through 12th grade. Every school has an outdoor classroom and a recycling and composting program. In 2013 the U.S. Department of Education named the district one of the nation’s first Green Ribbon Sustainability Districts.
Which school an address goes to
The school board adopted new K-5 attendance boundaries on Nov. 10, 2025, and they took effect this fall. WestWood closed as a neighborhood school, and its students moved to nearby schools. La ola del lago moved from Grainwood into the WestWood building, and SAGE Academy, the district’s full-time gifted program for grades 4 and 5, is in that building too. Grainwood is now the district’s Educational Service Center.
The district expected about 679 students to change schools, not counting La ola del lago. It chose the map that balanced enrollment best: its projections put every elementary under 70% of capacity except Five Hawks.
Check every address
Run each address you’re considering through the district’s 2026-27 school finder. A listing written before this fall may still name the old school.
District lines don’t follow city limits. Part of north Prior Lake is in Shakopee Public Schools (ISD 720), and about half of Savage is in Burnsville-Eagan-Savage (ISD 191). If you’re comparing neighborhoods, check the district as well as the school.
How the schools score
In U.S. News’s 2026-2027 Best High Schools list, released in August 2026, Prior Lake High School is #64 out of 420 ranked public high schools in Minnesota. Nationally it’s #3,663.
On the state’s MCA tests in 2025, 58% of district students met the math standard and 60% met the reading standard. Statewide it was 45% in math and about 50% in reading.
In 2024, 92% of district students graduated in four years, and 98% had graduated or were still in school, per the district.
U.S. News ranks elementary and middle schools too. On its 2026 lists, the district’s elementary schools run from #46 (Jeffers Pond) to #414 (Hamilton Ridge) out of 863 ranked in Minnesota, and the two middle schools, reported as one, are #95 of 445. The table below has each school.
Rating sites like Niche and GreatSchools re-rank every fall with their own formulas, so their grades aren’t on this page. To see state test results for any one school, look it up on the state’s Minnesota Report Card.
At a glance
| School | Grades | Students, 2024-25 | U.S. News rank in Minnesota |
|---|---|---|---|
| Five Hawks Elementary | K-5 | 454 | #331 of 863 (2026) |
| Glendale Elementary | K-5 | 522 | #99 of 863 (2026) |
| Hamilton Ridge Elementary | K-5 | 586 | #414 of 863 (2026) |
| Jeffers Pond Elementary | K-5 | 487 | #46 of 863 (2026) |
| La ola del lago at WestWood | K-5 | 463 | #70 of 863 (2026) |
| Redtail Ridge Elementary | K-5 | 556 | #388 of 863 (2026) |
| Hidden Oaks and Twin Oaks Middle Schools | 6-8 | 2,025 together | #95 of 445 (2026) |
| Prior Lake High School | 9-12 | 2,856 | #64 of 420 (2026-2027) |
Students: the federal count for 2024-25 (NCES), taken before this fall’s boundary change, so the elementary numbers have shifted since. La ola del lago was at Grainwood that year. Ranks: U.S. News, out of the Minnesota schools it ranked on its 2026 elementary and middle school lists and its 2026-2027 high school list. Bridges, Edgewood and Laker LAUNCH aren’t in the table.
School by school
Elementary schools
Five Hawks, Glendale, Jeffers Pond and Redtail Ridge are U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools, and all six elementary schools teach the district’s E-STEM curriculum.
- Jeffers Pond ranks highest of the six on the U.S. News 2026 list, #46 of 863 Minnesota elementary schools.
- Hamilton Ridge is the newest, built after voters approved a school bond in 2017, and it was the largest in 2024-25, with 586 students.
- La ola del lago at WestWood is the Spanish immersion school. Core subjects are taught in Spanish starting in kindergarten, families don’t need to speak Spanish at home, and students who live in the district get bus service. It started in 2014 at Edgewood, later moved to Grainwood, and moved into the WestWood building this fall. Through Amity International it hosts five to seven Language Ambassadors from Spanish-speaking countries each year, who live with local host families. Immersion continues in the middle schools.
- SAGE Academy shares the WestWood building. It’s the district’s full-time gifted program for grades 4 and 5.
Kids’ Company, the district’s before- and after-school care, runs 6:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Hidden Oaks and Twin Oaks Middle Schools
The two middle schools are partner schools across Fish Point Road from each other, with about 1,000 students each (2,025 together in 2024-25). They offer Project Lead the Way engineering, robotics, band, choir and the Spanish immersion track for La ola del lago students, and every student gets an iPad starting in 6th grade. Twin Oaks had a pool. The board closed it in its 2025-26 budget cuts; refurbishing it would have cost more than $1 million.
I remember walking through Twin Oaks when it was the high school. It felt like the biggest building in the world.
Prior Lake High School
Prior Lake High School had about 2,850 students and 138 teachers in 2024-25. U.S. News reports that 54% of its students took at least one AP exam and 41% passed at least one. It has Project Lead the Way, a Fab Lab, and MNCAPS (Minnesota Center for Advanced Professional Studies), which moved into the high school from leased space in 2025-26. The Lakers play in the South Suburban Conference.
Voters approved a $109.3 million school bond in 2017. About $46.8 million of it paid for high school additions, finished in 2020.
Bridges Area Learning Center
Bridges is the district’s alternative high school, with 75 students in 2024-25, small classes and flexible schedules. It moved into a building of its own, with seven learning studios, in fall 2019. Its STRIVE program, run with the Prior Lake Rotary Club, pairs students with adult mentors and awards $500 to $750 scholarships. Graduates earn a full district diploma.
Edgewood School
Edgewood is the district’s early learning center: Early Childhood Family Education classes for parents and young children, Circle of Friends Preschool (rated four stars by Parent Aware, the state’s top rating), a nature-based pre-kindergarten, early childhood special education, and early childhood screening, offered to every child starting at age 3.
Since the 2024 levy vote
On Nov. 5, 2024, voters turned down the district’s operating levy, 55.6% to 44.4%. For 2025-26 the board approved $4.1 million in cuts: fewer electives in grades 6 to 12, staffing changes and less spending on technology. It closed the Twin Oaks pool, ended Laker Online (the district’s online school) and moved MNCAPS into the high school.
For 2026-27 the board closed WestWood as a neighborhood school and is selling the District Services Center. The district says enrollment has slowed, mostly because of lower birth rates, and that it still needs about $4.1 million more in cuts without new revenue.
The Nov. 3 ballot
The district has two questions on the Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026 ballot. The first would replace the current operating levy with a new one. The second is a capital projects levy that counts only if the first one passes. Absentee voting opened Sept. 18.
I’m not taking a side. My school referendum page has the ballot wording, the district’s cost figures and the voting dates, each linked to its source.
Open enrollment
Minnesota’s open enrollment law lets families apply to a district they don’t live in. You apply to that district directly, not through the state. For 2026-27, Prior Lake-Savage approved every open enrollment application, and the board will decide on 2027-28 later. The form and details are on the district’s open enrollment page.
Open-enrolled families drive their kids to school or to a bus stop inside the district.
Photo: Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools.