The top reported proficiency rate is 34% in Math. The lowest is 10% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Team Academy
TEAM Academy is a small Minnesota district that serves only kindergarten through sixth grade, a grade span that shapes nearly everything about it. Because it does not operate a high school, there is no graduation rate to report and no advanced coursework or career-technical programming typical of secondary schools. The district consists of a single school, also called TEAM Academy, which occupies a distinctive position in the public school landscape.
Academically, the district’s state assessment results from the most recent testing year show a pattern that families will want to examine closely. In math, the share of students scoring proficient was a little over half of third graders, fell to well under half by fourth grade, and was very thin among fifth graders. Reading performance followed a similar shape, with about three in ten third graders and fifth graders meeting the bar, and slightly more than a third of fourth graders doing so. Science results, available only for fifth grade, showed a low rate of proficiency. Sixth-grade results in both math and reading were suppressed in the data, a common practice when the student group tested is very small, which is the case here. Compared with other districts in Waseca County, TEAM Academy’s overall proficiency index across tested subjects and grades placed it at the bottom of the small, three-district field.
The district’s enrollment is modest, with roughly a hundred students spread across kindergarten through sixth grade. The student body is a mix that tilts toward two large groups: about half of students are white and a large share, more than four in ten, are Hispanic. The remainder includes Black students and those identifying with two or more races. Information on the share of students receiving free or reduced-price meals was not reported, nor were figures on students with disabilities or English learners, which are common data points that help parents understand the support landscape. A parent may want to ask the school directly about these details.
On the financial side, TEAM Academy’s per-pupil current spending sits in the upper range among Waseca County’s districts, meaning the school puts a relatively high level of resources into each student compared with its neighbors. Chronic absenteeism, a measure of how many students miss a substantial number of school days, stood near the top of the county range and above the midpoint, so some students are missing enough school to draw attention. A family considering the school would do well to ask about attendance patterns and the strategies the school uses to keep students engaged daily.
One signal that stands out in the public record is that TEAM Academy was named a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education in 2024, a federal recognition that publicly reported information links to the school. That designation, which is awarded to a small number of schools each year, is one of the highest federal honors a school can receive and indicates sustained academic performance or progress. It is the kind of marker that often carries weight with families and can provide a counterpoint to the scores in a single year of testing.
There is no locale brief available for the community or communities this district serves, and the district brief is limited to the Blue Ribbon recognition. Without information on housing costs, neighborhood context, or the town or city where the school sits, a family evaluating TEAM Academy will need to research those factors separately. What the data makes clear is that this is a very small, K-6 charter-like district (the name and structure suggest it operates as a charter school, though the data does not confirm that status) with a diverse student body, a mixed assessment picture that parents should investigate further with the school, a higher than typical spending profile, and a notable federal recognition for excellence that may be its strongest calling card.
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