The top reported proficiency rate is 55% in English language arts. The lowest is 27% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on St. Paul School of Northern Lights
St. Paul School of Northern Lights is a small, K-8 district in Ramsey County that operates as a single charter district with two school buildings on its roster, one for elementary and one for secondary grades. The entity enrolls a small student body across kindergarten through eighth grade, with the largest cohorts in the early elementary grades and a notable taper through the middle school years. The student composition shows a predominantly white enrollment, with a substantial share of students who identify as two or more races, and smaller shares of Hispanic and Black students. The district does not serve high school grades, so it has no graduation rate to report.
The academic picture comes from the state's standardized assessments in math, English language arts, and science. In English language arts, the district recorded proficiency rates that rose through the elementary grades and peaked in a middle grade range, with a strong majority of tested students scoring proficient in some upper-elementary years. In math, performance was more uneven. Proficiency rates were a strong share of students in the earliest tested grades but declined sharply in later grades, with the middle-school grades reporting rates that were very low. Science results, available only for one grade level, showed roughly a third of students meeting proficiency. The overall proficiency index, which averages performance across all tested subjects and grades, placed this district in the top quartile among Ramsey County's districts, which is a strong relative position in a large and varied county.
Supporting context for the academic results is incomplete. Data on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, receive special education services, or are English learners is not available, so the reader cannot assess the support needs or resource challenges in the student body. Similarly, information on the district's staffing ratios, teacher experience, and course access is absent from the profile.
Chronic absenteeism, a standard measure of how many students miss a substantial number of school days, was reported at a rate that placed this district in the top quartile among its county peers, meaning fewer students are chronically absent here than in most other Ramsey County districts. The per-pupil current spending figure fell in the lower half of the middle range among the county's districts, a modest level for a small charter district with a single campus operation.
The district brief turned up no publicly reported parent-relevant changes such as boundary adjustments, program launches, or budget developments. The area served is part of Ramsey County, which includes Saint Paul and surrounding suburbs, but the district's own city location was not included in the available data.
This is a very small, K-8 charter district whose strongest academic showing is in English language arts in the upper-elementary grades, while math performance drops off markedly by middle school. The relatively low chronic absenteeism rate is a positive indicator of student engagement. The absence of key demographic and staffing information leaves a gap for families trying to assess the full learning environment. A parent considering this district would want to discuss directly with the school how math instruction and support are structured in the middle grades, and would also want to clarify the program differences between the two listed school sites, as the data does not detail how they divide the K-8 span.
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