Original Research by School Decision on Irrawaddy Academy
Irrawaddy Academy is a brand new public charter school district in St. Paul, Minnesota, that opened in 2024. Because it is so new, nearly all the standard data points that parents usually consult to evaluate a school—enrollment figures, test results, graduation rates, chronic absenteeism, spending per pupil—are missing. That absence is not a red flag; it simply reflects the fact that the district has not been operating long enough to have produced state-issued academic or accountability data. A parent researching this school will need to rely on its stated mission and plans rather than historical performance.
The district began with grades K through 4 and intends to add one grade level each year until it becomes a full K-12 school. That expansion plan means it is starting small and building gradually, which may appeal to families who want a growing community where they can help shape the school culture. The school’s early focus is on elementary students, so high-school metrics like a graduation rate are not applicable here and will not be for several years.
In January 2025, the school was renamed Delta Academy of Technology and Innovation. The original name, Irrawaddy Academy, was used for roughly its first year of operation. Any family researching the school should be aware of both names, as public records and online materials may still carry the older one. The current official name, per the Minnesota Department of Education, is Delta Academy of Technology and Innovation.
The district is positioned in Ramsey County, home to many other school districts and charter schools. Because Irrawaddy Academy has no test scores or other comparable metrics, it cannot yet be placed among its county peers. The comparison set used here is Ramsey County’s districts, a group of about fifty entities, but for this school the comparison fields are all blank. That will change once the school has several years of assessment data.
The school describes itself as offering culturally responsive teaching and a community-focused model, according to publicly available sources. It is a charter school, meaning it is publicly funded but operates independently of the traditional school district structure, with its own board and authorizer. Charter schools in Minnesota are free to attend and open to all students.
No demographic information is available yet: the district has not reported enrollment by race or ethnicity, the share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price meals, or counts of students with disabilities or English learners. Those details will likely appear once the school has been in operation for a full academic year and submits its data to the state.
The absence of a locale brief or community context means we cannot describe the housing market or the character of the neighborhoods the school serves. The school is located in St. Paul, a mid-sized city with a mix of urban neighborhoods, but no specific address or boundary information was provided.
For a family considering this school, the bottom line is that it is a very new option with no track record to examine. The planned grade-by-grade expansion gives it a distinctive shape: families who enroll now are joining a start-up school that will grow alongside their children. The renaming to Delta Academy of Technology and Innovation suggests a possible shift in emphasis, and families should confirm the school’s current curriculum focus and leadership directly. Without test scores or civil-rights data, the most useful next step is to visit the school, talk to the staff, and ask how they plan to measure student progress in the absence of state testing history.
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