Athlos Academy of Saint Cloud, Saint Cloud MN

Original Research by School Decision on Athlos Academy of Saint Cloud

Athlos Academy of Saint Cloud is no longer in operation. The charter school, which opened in Saint Cloud and served students from kindergarten through fifth grade, has closed after the 2024‑2025 school year. Families seeking student records are directed to the Saint Cloud Area Schools district. That closure means there is no current academic pathway to evaluate, but the school’s recent data offers a portrait of what it was.

Located on South 33rd Street in the southern part of Saint Cloud, the school sat within a mid-sized city that functions as a regional center. Saint Cloud is the Stearns County seat, home to St. Cloud State University, a major hospital system, and manufacturing employers such as New Flyer of America. The city sits along Interstate 94, roughly an hour northwest of the Twin Cities, and has seen steady population growth driven partly by immigrant resettlement, including a substantial Somali community. Housing values in the area are close to the national median, and rental costs have been rising.

The school itself was a public charter, meaning it operated independently of the local district while remaining publicly funded. Its enrollment was small for a K‑5 school, and the student body drew predominantly from families in Saint Cloud and surrounding communities. A very large share of students qualified for free or reduced‑price meals, reflecting significant economic need. Racially, the largest group was Black students, followed by White students and Hispanic students; smaller numbers identified as Native American, Asian, or multiracial. Data on students with disabilities and English learners were not available.

State test results were reported for grades three through five, which is the tested grade range for a school that ends at fifth grade. The data also contained proficiency figures for grade six in reading and math, but the school’s enrollment did not include sixth graders, so those figures likely reflect a reporting artifact or a very small number of students not captured in the grade‑by‑grade count. Among the grades that were actually served, proficiency rates in math and reading were markedly low. In third grade, roughly one in five students met the state standard in math, and about one in eight did so in reading. Fourth-grade reading was slightly higher, at roughly one in four, but math remained below one in five. By fifth grade, math proficiency dropped to roughly one in ten, and reading to about one in six. Science results for fifth grade showed a similarly low share reaching proficiency. When the school’s overall performance across tested subjects was compared with other districts in Stearns County, it fell in the bottom quarter.

The school did not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. Chronic absenteeism data was also not available.

For a parent looking back at what Athlos Academy of Saint Cloud offered, the picture is of a small charter school serving a high‑poverty, majority‑Black elementary population in a mid‑sized city with a diverse economy and a growing immigrant community. The academic results were consistently low, which a family may have wanted to explore with school leadership. But that conversation is now moot: the school has closed, and the landscape of available schooling in Saint Cloud no longer includes it.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 319%

School 19% · District 19%

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

Grade 417%

School 17% · District 17%

▼ 34 pts below state median · ▼ 38 pts below county median

Grade 510%

School 10% · District 10%

▼ 25 pts below state median · ▼ 25 pts below county median

Grade 60%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 27 pts below state median · ▼ 23 pts below county median

Grade 70%

School 0% · district not reported

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

Grade 80%

School 0% · district not reported

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

English language arts

Grade 313%

School 13% · District 13%

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

Grade 426%

School 26% · District 26%

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

Grade 517%

School 17% · District 17%

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

Grade 642%

School 42% · District 42%

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Grade 70%

School 0% · district not reported

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

Grade 80%

School 0% · district not reported

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

Science

Grade 55%

School 5% · District 5%

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 16 pts below county median

This schoolAthlos Academy of Saint Cloud, 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.