Loveworks Academy for Arts, Minneapolis MN

Original Research by School Decision on Loveworks Academy for Arts

Loveworks Academy for Arts was a charter school in Minneapolis serving kindergarten through eighth grade. It is now closed. The school shut down abruptly in September 2024 after its authorizer moved to revoke the contract, citing persistently low academic performance and financial difficulties. For a parent researching this school today, the key fact is that it is no longer operating, so the question is not whether to enroll but rather what this history tells you about the options that remain.

The student body was overwhelmingly Black, with a very small number of white students, a handful of multiracial students, and even fewer Hispanic students. A substantial share of students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch. The school was small for a K-8 campus, with each grade from kindergarten through eighth grade having modest class sizes. The school did not serve high school grades, so there was no graduation rate to report. Because the school is closed, there is no current enrollment, staffing, or program data to describe.

State testing results from the last year the school operated showed very low proficiency across all subjects and grade levels. In mathematics, in every grade from third through eighth, essentially no students met the state’s proficiency standard. In reading and language arts, the picture was similar: most grade levels had only a tiny handful of students reaching proficiency. The eighth grade had a slightly higher share in ELA, but still well below typical levels. In science, tested in fifth and eighth grades, no students scored proficient. The school’s overall proficiency index, averaged across all tested grades and subjects, placed it in the bottom quartile when compared to other districts in Hennepin County. The statewide averages for this metric were far higher.

The school was located in Minneapolis, a major urban center with a dense mix of commercial, residential, and institutional uses. Minneapolis is home to the University of Minnesota, major corporate headquarters, and a well-known park and lake system. The school sat in a city neighborhood within a few miles of downtown. Housing values in the area were below the state and national benchmarks, and rents had been rising.

The closure of Loveworks Academy for Arts was publicly reported as the result of an authorizer’s decision to revoke the school’s contract over what it described as unacceptably low academic scores and struggling finances. The Minnesota Department of Education listed the school as not active, with a notation that it stopped operating during the 2024-2025 school year. Families who had children enrolled needed to find alternative placements elsewhere in the city.

For someone reading this to understand what the school was, the story is straightforward: it was a small, high-poverty urban charter that served mostly Black students from kindergarten through eighth grade and produced very low academic outcomes before closing. The academic record was one of the weakest in the county. A parent looking at this school’s history would see a place that struggled to meet basic learning benchmarks and ultimately could not sustain its operations. The district it belonged to no longer exists as an active entity.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 30%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 55 pts below state median · ▼ 46 pts below county median

Grade 48%

School 8% · District 8%

▼ 43 pts below state median · ▼ 35 pts below county median

Grade 50%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 35 pts below state median · ▼ 29 pts below county median

Grade 60%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 27 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

Grade 70%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

Grade 80%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 26 pts below state median · ▼ 21 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 30%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 42 pts below state median · ▼ 37 pts below county median

Grade 48%

School 8% · District 8%

▼ 33 pts below state median · ▼ 28 pts below county median

Grade 58%

School 8% · District 8%

▼ 46 pts below state median · ▼ 36 pts below county median

Grade 60%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 46 pts below state median · ▼ 35 pts below county median

Grade 78%

School 8% · District 8%

▼ 28 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

Grade 819%

School 19% · District 19%

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 18 pts below county median

Science

Grade 50%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

Grade 80%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 12 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

This schoolLOVEWORKS ACADEMY FOR ARTS, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.