Original Research by School Decision on 917 Dcals North Extended Day (edop)
917 DCALS North Extended Day (EDOP) is an alternative high school in West St. Paul, serving grades nine through twelve. It operates under Intermediate School District 917, which is an intermediate district that provides special education, career and technical education, and alternative learning services to nine member districts in the area. The school’s enrollment data shows no students reported, with all grade-level counts at zero, and the state testing data that would normally be the primary measure of academic performance is entirely absent. No graduation rate, chronic absenteeism rate, or discipline data is available either. This is not a missing-data problem; it is a reflection of the school’s nature. As an alternative school within a specialized intermediate district, it likely serves a small, targeted population of students who are in an extended-day or off-site program, and as a result it does not generate the standard metrics that traditional high schools would. A parent looking for test scores, a graduation rate, or course offerings will find none of these here, and this is consistent with the school’s type.
The school sits in West St. Paul, a first-ring suburb of Saint Paul that is more built-up than many outer suburbs. Robert Street, a busy commercial corridor, is the city’s main spine, carrying heavy vehicular traffic and hosting over a thousand businesses, including a light industrial park. The city does not have a traditional downtown; its civic and commercial life is strung along that strip instead. The housing stock is described as well-maintained, and the city has an established program to preserve housing quality. Homes in the area are valued near the national benchmark for the housing market, and rents have risen modestly. The population grew through the last census but remains a modest-size suburb. The city has fifteen parks, an indoor ice arena, a community swimming pool, and the Thomas Irvine Dodge Nature Center, which includes nature preserves. Major employers include a medical adhesives manufacturer, the county government, and the school district itself.
Because this is an alternative school within a cooperative intermediate district, the typical considerations a family would use to evaluate a mainstream high school do not apply. There is no course access data, no staffing data, and no attendance data. The school is not a charter and has no magnet designation. The district brief turned up no parent-relevant changes to report. The comparison fact-set, which would normally position this school relative to other districts in Dakota County, could compute no metrics because the school’s data is absent for the measures that would be used. That is not unusual for a program of this kind.
What a family should understand is that this is not a school one chooses in the same way one chooses a comprehensive high school. It is a program for students who need an alternative setting, likely one that involves an extended-day or off-site structure. The absence of standard academic data does not mean the school is failing to serve its students; it means the school’s function does not produce those numbers in a form that is comparable to a traditional school. A parent considering this program should expect to get their understanding directly from the school or from Intermediate School District 917, because the public data record will not give them the picture they are used to seeing for a conventional high school. The housing market in West St. Paul sits near the national average, and the community is a compact first-ring suburb with a mix of residential neighborhoods and a heavy commercial corridor. The city’s economy is diverse for its size, with a mix of county government, manufacturing, and small business. The parks and nature center add a layer of recreation that distinguishes the community from a pure bedroom suburb.
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