The top reported proficiency rate is 47% in English language arts. The lowest is 29% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Creekstone Montessori Charter
Creekstone Montessori Charter is a small, tuition-free public charter school in Red Wing, Minnesota, serving students in kindergarten through seventh grade. It opened in fall 2022, creating a new public Montessori option in the area where a Montessori education had previously required tuition. For families drawn to the Montessori philosophy but looking for a public school setting, this is an entirely new pathway.
The school is its own district. Its enrollment of about that size for a K-7 building distributes across the grades with roughly a dozen students per grade, typical of a small startup school. The student body is predominantly white, with small numbers of students who identify as Hispanic, as American Indian or Alaska Native, and as two or more races. Data on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, receive special education services, or are English learners was not available for this report.
State assessment results are available for the 2024-25 school year in grades three and four, and for fifth and sixth grades the data is suppressed due to small tested counts, a common data privacy practice when groups are very small. Among the grades with reported scores, the proficiency picture is mixed. In reading, third graders showed a proficiency rate below the midpoint among Goodhue County's districts, while fourth graders performed higher. In math, third grade proficiency was also below the county midpoint, and fourth grade had a stronger result. Science results for fifth grade were suppressed. Because the school is new and its grade-level cohorts are very small, these results should be read as early baseline information, not a settled pattern. Overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades placed the school below the midpoint among the eight districts in Goodhue County.
The school does not yet serve high school grades, so it has no graduation rate to report. Chronic absenteeism is a softer area, with a rate that falls below the midpoint in the county, meaning a higher share of students than in many neighboring districts are missing substantial school. A parent may want to discuss attendance expectations and support with the school directly.
On spending, the school’s per-pupil current expenditure is in the upper range among the county’s districts. This often reflects the costs of operating a small, freestanding charter school with its own campus and administrative overhead, rather than being part of a larger district.
Creekstone Montessori is the kind of place a family chooses for its educational approach, not its test-score profile. The available academic data comes from very small groups and a single year, so it tells you more that the school is young and small than about long-term performance. For a family seeking a Montessori program in a public, tuition-free format, and who is comfortable with a small school where multi-age classrooms, student-directed learning, and hands-on materials are central to the day, this school presents itself as the only public option of its type in the area. The chronic absenteeism figure and the early proficiency data are worth a conversation with the school about where they are putting their effort.
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