Original Research by School Decision on Online High School
OnlineHigh School is a small online charter high school serving grades nine through twelve, operated under the Avalon School district in Saint Paul. With an enrollment that is very small for a high school, the student body is concentrated in the upper grades, and the majority of students are in their senior year. The school serves a population in which a substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a marker of low household income.
The racial and ethnic composition of the student body is not uniform. Just over half of students are white. Hispanic students make up the next largest group, followed by a notable share of American Indian or Alaska Native students. Smaller numbers of Asian students and students of two or more races also attend. Data on students with disabilities or English learner status were not available from the school’s reporting.
The academic performance picture is thin. The only state testing data reported is a math proficiency rate from the most recent school year, and it shows that no students in the tested group met the state’s math proficiency standard. No reading, science, or other subject results were available, and there is no trend data to compare. Because the school serves only high school grades, state testing is expected at those levels, but the absence of results in other subjects and the single-year snapshot of very low math proficiency are significant gaps for a parent trying to evaluate academic outcomes. The school also does not report a graduation rate, chronic absenteeism rate, or any other outcome metrics that are typically available for a high school. Some of these gaps may reflect the nature of a very small online program, but the available data does not explain why the information is missing. A parent considering this school would want to ask the school directly about academic achievement across subjects, graduation and college-going rates, and how students are supported to meet state standards.
As a charter school, Online High School operates with some autonomy from the traditional Saint Paul Public Schools system. Its parent district, Avalon School, is a small charter organization known for project-based learning and a teacher-powered governance model, though no recent changes or major policy shifts were identified in publicly available sources. The school’s location address is in Saint Paul, but as an online program, the physical location may be administrative rather than where students attend classes; students likely participate remotely from across the region or state.
Housing context in the area around the school shows home values in the zip code are below the state median but roughly in line with the national average. Rents have been rising, consistent with broader trends in the Twin Cities metro area. For any family considering this school, the online format means the housing market is less directly relevant than it would be for a brick-and-mortar school with a defined attendance boundary.
This is a school that fits a very particular niche: a tiny, fully online high school serving a low-income and diverse student body, with very limited publicly available evidence of academic performance. The absence of most standard high school metrics means a family would need to do additional research to understand whether the school is meeting its students’ needs academically and in preparation for life after high school.
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