Grafton School, Cold Spring MN - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Grafton School

Grafton School is an alternative school serving kindergarten through grade 12 in Cold Spring, Minnesota. It is operated by the Benton-Stearns Education District, a special education cooperative that supports six member school districts. The school's status as an alternative school signals that it is designed for students whose needs are not fully met in a conventional classroom setting.

The school is exceptionally small. Its total enrollment is modest, and while the grade band spans kindergarten through twelfth grade, the students actually attending are concentrated in grades four through eight. There are no students enrolled in high school grades. The student body is predominantly white, with a small share of Hispanic students, and a substantial majority qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. This level of economic need is markedly higher than what is typical in the area.

Cold Spring, where the school is located, is a small city with deep German Catholic roots and an economy built around manufacturing, food processing, and granite quarrying. The housing market has seen modest appreciation, and home values are near the state average. The town is car-dependent, with a traditional Main Street corridor and separated school campuses. The broader community includes several private Catholic schools and the public ROCORI district, but Grafton School answers a different purpose.

State testing data for Grafton School is available for math, English language arts, and science across several elementary and middle school grades. Proficiency rates for math were reported at zero for all tested grade levels. In English language arts, the aggregate proficiency rate was in the teens. The science result for grade five was suppressed because the number of students tested was very small. The school's overall proficiency index, which averages performance across tested subjects and grades, places it in the bottom quartile relative to districts in Stearns County. Only one year of assessment data is available, so there is no trend to examine.

There is no graduation rate to report because the school does not serve students in the upper high school grades. Chronic absenteeism data was also not available for this school.

A parent considering Grafton School should understand what it is and what it is not. This is not a comprehensive neighborhood school. It is a specialized alternative setting, likely serving students who benefit from a smaller, more structured environment than a traditional school can provide. The low proficiency numbers, while a concern in a conventional context, need to be interpreted with the school's purpose and population in mind. Many alternative schools serve students who have struggled elsewhere, and the academic starting points may be different. A parent may want to ask the school directly about the specific programs, supports, and instructional approaches it uses for students across the grade levels it actually serves, and whether the school also provides transition services for older students who may be preparing to move back to a home district or to a post-secondary pathway.

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