Prodeo Columbia Heights Middle, Columbia Heights MN

Original Research by School Decision on Prodeo Columbia Heights Middle

Prodeo Columbia Heights Middle is a charter school serving fifth through eighth grade in Columbia Heights, a compact first-ring suburb of Minneapolis in Anoka County. The school is part of the Prodeo Academy network. Because the school serves middle grades only, there is no high school graduation rate to report.

The student body is small for a four-grade middle school. Demographically, the school population is predominantly Black and Hispanic, with a much smaller share of students who are two or more races, and very small numbers of students who are white, American Indian or Alaska Native, or Asian. A very large share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on the share of students with individualized education programs or who are English learners was not available.

On state assessments, proficiency rates are well below the average across tested subjects and grades. In math, the share of students scoring proficient was low at every grade level tested. In reading, proficiency rates were also low, with some variation by grade. In science, the proficiency rate was very low at both the fifth and eighth grade levels. The school’s overall performance on these measures places it in the bottom quartile among districts in Anoka County. Because state testing for these grades is a standard measure, these figures provide a clear picture of current academic attainment. A parent may want to look into what academic supports and interventions the school offers.

Prodeo Academy’s St. Paul campus is adding eighth grade for the 2025-26 school year, according to publicly reported information from the school’s website, completing its PreK-8 pathway. No similar planned change was reported for the Columbia Heights campus.

Columbia Heights itself is dense and small in area, with a downtown node at 40th Avenue NE and Central Avenue that contains the public library, the Heights Theater, and county offices. The city has a hilly terrain and several small lakes. Housing values in the area are roughly in line with national norms, and rents have been rising recently; a 30-year fixed mortgage rate of about six and a half percent nationally shapes the affordability context for any prospective buyer or renter. Major commercial corridors run north-south along Central Avenue and University Avenue. School buildings for the Columbia Heights public school district are distributed across the city rather than clustered on a single campus; Prodeo Columbia Heights Middle itself is not a school in that district, but the surrounding neighborhood context is the same.

For a family considering this school, the picture is a charter middle school in a dense inner-ring suburb, serving a predominantly low-income student body of color, with state-test results that are well below county averages. The school is part of a network that has publicly stated plans to expand grade offerings on its St. Paul campus. There is no available data on discipline rates, chronic absenteeism, or course access, so those dimensions of the school environment cannot be assessed from the information at hand.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 515%

School 15% · District 25% · ▼ 11 pts below district

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

Grade 618%

School 18% · District 33% · ▼ 14 pts below district

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Grade 716%

School 16% · District 33% · ▼ 17 pts below district

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 813%

School 13% · District 13%

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 523%

School 23% · District 31% · ▼ 7 pts below district

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

Grade 633%

School 33% · District 36% · ▼ 3 pts below district

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

Grade 719%

School 19% · District 22% · ▼ 3 pts below district

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

Grade 825%

School 25% · District 25%

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Science

Grade 57%

School 7% · District 7%

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

Grade 85%

School 5% · District 5%

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

This schoolProdeo Academy, 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 5Lower-income21%Higher-income31%9 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income14%Higher-income15%1 pp gap