The top reported proficiency rate is 0% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Bellaire Education Center
Bellaire Education Center is a special education school serving students in grades five through nine, located in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. It operates under the Northeast Metro 916 intermediate district, a specialized agency that provides shared special education, career and technical, and alternative learning programs to multiple member districts across the region. This is not a neighborhood school that families select by address; students are placed here by their home districts when they require a more intensive therapeutic or academic setting than a traditional school can provide.
The school is small, both in enrollment and in physical footprint. That small size is intentional for a program designed to offer close supervision and individualized support. The student body is diverse: roughly equal numbers of white and Black students, with a smaller share of Asian students and a very small Hispanic presence. More than a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, which speaks to the economic circumstances many families bring with them.
White Bear Lake itself is a suburban city on the north shore of the lake that gives it its name, roughly twenty miles from downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul. It has a walkable downtown core with restaurants and shops, and the lake is central to community life, with public piers, a beach, seasonal sailing and ice fishing. The city is largely built out, and the housing market reflects a fairly stable suburb. Home values and rents are broadly in line with the state median, making it a moderately priced option within the Twin Cities metro area. Most school campuses, including Bellaire Education Center, are located away from the downtown strip on separate sites, consistent with the suburban layout.
On state academic assessments, Bellaire Education Center reports very low proficiency rates in both math and English language arts across grades six, seven, and eight. In science, the result for grade eight was suppressed due to a very small number of test takers. The school’s overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quarter when compared to all districts in Ramsey County. A parent looking at these numbers should understand that this is a special education school serving students with significant learning, behavioral, or emotional needs. Standardized tests are not a meaningful measure of the school’s effectiveness for its specific population. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report, and chronic absenteeism data was not available. A parent considering a placement here would want to speak directly with the school or the referring district to understand the specific services, therapeutic components, and transition plans for students who complete grade nine.
The district brief found no recent parent-relevant changes to report for Northeast Metro 916, such as a referendum, curriculum overhaul, or boundary shift. That is unsurprising for an intermediate district that functions as a back-office and program provider rather than a direct residential school system.
Bellaire Education Center is not the kind of school where a family chooses to move into a catchment area. It is a specialized placement for students whose needs exceed what their home school can provide. For those families, the relevant questions are about the staff-to-student ratio, the types of therapy offered, the behavior support framework, and how the school prepares students to transition back to a less restrictive setting or to high school. The data available publicly does not answer those questions directly. A family pursuing this option should seek out the program description and talk to the school leadership about what a typical day looks like and what outcomes past students have achieved.
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