The top reported proficiency rate is 10% in English language arts. The lowest is 1% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Academia Cesar Chavez Charter Sch.
Academia Cesar Chavez Charter School operates as a single-campus district serving pre-kindergarten through eighth grade in St. Paul’s Eastside. As of July 2024, it became part of a newly unified charter district called Academias La Paz, created through a merger with El Colegio High School in Minneapolis. This restructuring means that families now have a single PreK–12 pathway across two campuses: the original Cesar Chavez campus for elementary and middle grades, and the El Colegio campus for high school. This is a lasting structural change that matters for anyone evaluating long-term educational options in the area.
The student body is almost entirely Hispanic, with nearly all students sharing that background. The district enrolls about 500 students, distributed fairly evenly across kindergarten through eighth grade, with a pre-kindergarten program as well. Data on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch was not reported, nor were counts for special education or English learner status, making it difficult to assess the level of economic or academic support need from those figures alone.
State testing results are available for math, reading, and science across grades three through eight, and they paint a picture a parent will want to examine carefully. Proficiency rates are very low across every tested subject and grade level. In math, the share of students scoring proficient or above ranged from essentially none in fifth grade to a very small share in eighth grade. Reading results are similarly low, with the highest rate reaching about a quarter of students proficient in eighth grade. Science results show a similar pattern: no tested fifth graders reached proficiency, and a very small share of eighth graders did. The district’s overall proficiency index, which averages performance across all tested subjects and grades, places it in the bottom quartile among Ramsey County’s districts. A parent exploring this school should look into what academic supports and interventions are in place for students who are behind grade level.
The school does not serve high school grades on its own campus, so there is no four-year graduation rate to report for this entity. With the merger into Academias La Paz, students in this district now have a high school pathway at the El Colegio campus, but that school’s performance data is not part of this profile.
Chronic absenteeism is a significant concern. The district’s rate is in the bottom quartile among Ramsey County’s districts, meaning a high share of students miss substantial amounts of school. A parent may want to ask what the school is doing to improve attendance and how it supports students who are frequently absent.
Per-pupil spending is in the middle range, lower half, of Ramsey County districts. This suggests the school is not unusually well-funded compared to its neighbors, but it is not at the very bottom either. No data was available on class sizes, staffing ratios, course offerings, or discipline rates, so those pieces of the picture remain unknown.
The Cesar Chavez campus itself is in St. Paul’s Eastside, a densely populated urban area of the city. The merger with El Colegio creates a two-campus district that spans the Twin Cities, which means families who stay with this district through high school will need to travel to Minneapolis for grades nine through twelve. This is a practical consideration for a family weighing long-term fit.
For a family whose priority is finding a school where most students share a Hispanic background and that offers a continuous PreK–12 pathway in a newly unified charter district, Academias La Paz provides that structure. The academic proficiency numbers are a serious soft spot, and the chronic absenteeism rate is notably high, so a parent should investigate the school’s academic support systems, intervention strategies, and attendance initiatives before deciding.
See more original research from School Decision →