Original Research by School Decision on New Code Academy High School
New Code Academy High School is a small, fully online public high school operated by the Bloomington Public School District. It serves grades nine through twelve and is open not just to district residents but to any Minnesota family, offering a permanent alternative to in-person learning. The school’s courses are created and taught by licensed Bloomington teachers and are meant to match the rigor of face-to-face classes, which gives families looking for a flexible, remote option a defined pathway within the state’s public system.
Academic results for the school are thin and raise immediate questions. The most recent state assessment data, from the 2024-25 school year, shows a zero percent proficiency rate in both English language arts and mathematics for all tested students. It is rare for a regular public school to report a flat zero, and a parent or resident considering this school would want to look into this further with the school itself. Several factors could explain the figure. The school is entirely online, and participation in state testing may have been low among its student body, which would suppress the reported proficiency rate. Minnesota’s testing rules allow for opt-outs, and an online setting may see higher rates of non-participation. The data does not disclose the number of students tested, so it is impossible to know whether the zero reflects very few test-takers or widespread low performance. A reasonable next step would be to ask the school how many students took the assessments and what the school’s internal measures of progress look like.
The school’s enrollment is very small, and its student body is economically diverse. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The racial and ethnic composition is mixed, with the largest group being white students, followed by Black students and Hispanic students, with smaller shares of Asian students and students of two or more races. No data was available on the share of students with individualized education plans or English learner status, so those dimensions of student support are not visible from this record. The school’s grade band stops at twelve, but because it is an online school it does not have a traditional graduation ceremony cohort that the state reports on in the same way; no graduation rate was available in the data, and the chronic absenteeism measure was also missing. These gaps are characteristic of a school that sits outside the conventional attendance and testing patterns, but they still leave a parent without key benchmarks.
The school is part of the Bloomington Public School District, which operates a range of other options that a family might cross-shop. The district runs a Career and College Academy where high school students can take college-credit courses with college instructors, and a Computer Science Immersion program in partnership with the University of Minnesota that integrates computer science into other subjects at the elementary and middle levels. These programs are not directly tied to New Code Academy, but they show the district’s broader investment in alternative pathways and STEM-focused learning.
Bloomington itself is a large suburb of Minneapolis, shaped by post-World War II housing growth and heavy commercial development along the interstate corridors. The Mall of America anchors the South Loop district, and the city has more jobs per capita than either Minneapolis or Saint Paul. The built environment is car-oriented, though light rail and bus rapid transit connect the city to downtown Minneapolis. About a third of the city is parkland, including large natural areas along the Minnesota River valley. Housing values in the area sit near the middle of the range for Hennepin County, and rents have been rising at a moderate pace. The city’s population has been roughly stable with a slight recent decline.
For a parent considering New Code Academy High School, the central appeal is the flexibility of a fully online public school with district-level instructional quality and the ability to enroll from anywhere in the state. The trade-off is a near-total lack of public-facing academic performance data that would normally help a family gauge student outcomes. The school would need to be evaluated through direct inquiry, conversations with current families, and whatever internal assessments the school shares. Without that, the available record leaves a reader with little to anchor on beyond the program’s design and the district’s reputation.
See more original research from School Decision →