Original Research by School Decision on Exploration High School
Exploration High School is a young charter school in Minneapolis, having opened in the fall of 2021. It serves students in grades nine through twelve and operates as a regular public charter school. Its educational model centers on project-based learning, work-based learning, youth voice and leadership, and community involvement, which is an explicit programmatic choice that shapes the daily experience.
The school is small. Its enrollment reflects an early-stage school with an uneven grade distribution, as is common for a school building up from a founding class. The student body is diverse, with a blend of racial and ethnic backgrounds. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. This is a young school in an early phase of establishing its track record, and a parent should be aware that the available academic performance data is thin and represents only a single year.
State testing results are available for the most recent school year. In English language arts, the proficiency rate was about where the field broadly is for many schools that serve a high share of students from low-income households. In mathematics, the proficiency rate was low. There is only one year of data, so there is no trend to examine; a parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand how instruction and student supports are developing. Because the school is a charter, it does not have a traditional district boundary, and the comparison to other districts in Hennepin County could not be calculated because the school lacks a multi-year proficiency index, a graduation rate, and a chronic absenteeism rate in the data available.
Minneapolis is a major urban center, and Exploration High School sits within its fabric. The city offers the full set of amenities of a large metropolitan area: a dense downtown, major employers such as Target Corporation and the University of Minnesota, extensive parks and lakes, and a public transit system that includes light rail. Housing in the surrounding zip code is valued below the national median for single-family homes, and rents have been rising over the past year. The city's population has seen a modest decline in recent years, but the broader metro area remains a large and economically diverse region.
Families considering Exploration High School are choosing a specific programmatic approach over a more conventional high school experience. The school’s project-based and work-based learning model, combined with its small size, means that students are likely to receive a lot of individual attention and have direct involvement in shaping their own learning. The trade-off is that this is a very new school that is still establishing its academic outcomes and extracurricular offerings. The school does not have a graduation rate to report yet, as it has not had a cohort reach the end of four years. A parent looking for a well-established track record of college readiness or a wide array of Advanced Placement courses will not find that here. A parent seeking a small, hands-on, community-connected high school with a founding-era energy may find it a compelling fit.
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