The reported proficiency rate for Science is 17%.
Original Research by School Decision on Shining Stars Montessori Academy Pcs
Shining Stars Montessori Academy PCS is a single-school public charter entity in the District of Columbia serving pre-kindergarten through sixth grade. As the name signals, the school is built around Montessori pedagogy, an educational approach that emphasizes self-directed work, mixed-age classrooms, and hands-on materials. That method is a matter of family preference rather than something that ranks above or below a conventional model; it suits some children deeply and others less so. The school also offers a dual language Spanish immersion program, and a publicly reported change in recent years expanded that program from the early grades up through the upper elementary levels, giving families the option of continuous dual language education through sixth grade rather than having it end earlier. That expansion is a genuine program strength for families seeking bilingual development over the full span of the elementary years.
The enrollment is small, and the distribution across grades is uneven in a way that shapes the school's character. The pre-kindergarten levels hold the largest share of students, with notably fewer children in the upper elementary grades. This is common in Montessori programs, where families often enter at the early childhood level and some transition to other schools for later elementary or middle school. A parent considering the upper grades may want to ask the school about class composition and peer groups at those levels, since smaller cohorts can affect both social dynamics and staffing flexibility.
The student body is predominantly Black, with a Hispanic or Latino presence that reflects the school's Spanish immersion focus, along with smaller Asian, White, and American Indian or Alaska Native representation. We looked for data on free or reduced-price lunch eligibility, special education populations, and English learner status, but none of those figures were available in the provided data, so they are left out here rather than estimated.
On state assessments, the picture is limited and sobering. The school participates in the District of Columbia's DCCAPE exams in math and English language arts for grades three through six. For the most recent reported year, the available results show proficiency rates in the lower range for both math and English language arts at the third and fourth grade levels, where data was reported. Several grade-level results were suppressed, which often reflects very small tested populations and the privacy protections that accompany them. An earlier science assessment for fifth grade showed similarly low proficiency. These results are stated as fact. They do not capture everything a Montessori environment aims to develop, which often extends beyond what standardized tests measure, but they are the available academic evidence, and a parent may want to look into this further with the school, asking how the curriculum maps to state standards and what supports are in place for children building core skills.
No graduation rate applies here because the school does not serve high school grades, and that gap reflects the grade band rather than a missing expectation. There is no locale brief or community and economic context in the data provided, so details about the surrounding neighborhood, housing costs, or commute patterns are not included. Program offerings beyond the dual language expansion were not available in the data sections. Civil rights data, discipline information, course access details, and staffing figures were also absent.
What the data does give a parent is a clear sense of a small, Montessori-rooted charter school with a dual language pathway that now runs through the upper elementary grades, a pre-kindergarten-heavy enrollment pattern, a predominantly Black and Hispanic student community, and state assessment results that sit in the lower ranges where they are reported. Families drawn to Montessori and bilingual education will find the program design here, and the question worth bringing to the school directly is how that design supports children in reaching grade-level academic benchmarks alongside the broader developmental goals the approach champions.
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