The top reported proficiency rate is 23% in English language arts. The lowest is 15% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on North Side Community School
North Side Community School is a small pre-kindergarten-through-eighth-grade public school district in St. Louis city that operates two school buildings. It serves a small total enrollment spread across ten grade levels, a student body that is almost entirely African American. Because the district does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to examine.
Academically, the Missouri Assessment Program testing results show that proficiency rates in math sit below the midpoint among the county’s districts, while rates in English language arts and science are also low in an absolute sense. For instance, in math, tested grades saw roughly in the teens of students scoring proficient or advanced. In English language arts, there is a more varied picture: one grade level posted a proficiency rate substantially higher than the other tested grades, though the overall pattern remains modest. Science proficiency rates for the tested grades were similarly low. The data for the youngest tested grade’s English language arts results was suppressed, so a complete picture across all grade levels is not available. A parent may want to discuss with the school how instruction supports early literacy.
The district’s proficiency index—an average of all reported test results—places it just slightly above the midpoint among St. Louis city’s districts. This is a peer group where the top proficiency levels are considerably higher. Chronic absenteeism affects about a third of students, which puts the district below the midpoint in the same county comparison; lower is better on this metric, so this is a soft spot that a family should ask about directly. Per-pupil current spending falls in the middle range but toward the upper half of the city’s districts.
The student body is small, with enrollment concentrated heavily in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten. By grades one through eight, the number of children in each grade drops to very low single digits. This means many classrooms are likely to be combined-grade settings, and the social peer environment for a given age is very limited. For a family seeking a very small, intimate setting where a child will be well-known, this could be a fit. For a family seeking a large same-age peer group or wide extracurricular options, it may not.
Housing and community context data was not provided, so it is not possible to describe the local real estate market or the kind of neighborhood that feeds into this district. No recent district-level changes were found in the search, so there is nothing to report about new programming, leadership shifts, or facilities work. Because this is a charter-style district—public but independently run—it operates outside the typical governance of a traditional neighborhood school district, though its exact charter or status was not specified in the available data.
Civil rights data, such as special education or English learner counts, was also absent from the record. A parent enrolling here should expect a school where the numbers are small enough that every child matters, the academic results are below state averages, and the community is a tight-knit one by necessity.
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