Cold Spring Elementary, Cold Spring MN

Original Research by School Decision on Cold Spring Elementary

Cold Spring Elementary serves students from pre-kindergarten through sixth grade in the ROCORI Public School District, located in the city of Cold Spring, Minnesota. It is a regular public school, one of several elementary buildings in a district that also covers the neighboring communities of Rockville and Richmond. The school sits on its own campus, separate from the district’s shared middle and high school facilities.

The student body numbers in the mid-hundreds, a size that allows for multiple sections per grade. The demographic makeup is predominantly White, with a substantial Hispanic or Latino presence and very small shares of Black, American Indian, and multiracial students. More than a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a common economic indicator. The data does not include counts of students receiving special education services or English learner supports, so a family with a child in either of those categories would want to ask the school directly who it serves and how.

Students in grades three through five take the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments each year. The most recent results provide a snapshot but not a multiyear trend, as only one year of comparable data is available. In math, third and fourth graders posted proficiency rates above half, while fifth graders came in lower. In reading, the opposite pattern appeared: third grade was the lowest, fifth grade the highest. Science is tested in grade five only, and the proficiency rate there was the weakest across all subjects. That science assessment involved changes to both the test name and the performance-level cut scores, which means the results should be interpreted with that caveat in mind.

Across all tested subjects and grades, Cold Spring Elementary’s overall proficiency index falls in the top quarter among the districts in Stearns County. The county median for this metric is lower, though the top of the range is higher, so the school is solidly above the middle of the pack. For a school that serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and chronic absenteeism and discipline figures were not available in the data.

Cold Spring itself is a small city in Stearns County, part of the St. Cloud metropolitan area. The Sauk River runs through town, and the community has deep German Catholic roots visible in churches and local institutions. The economy relies on manufacturing, food processing, health care, and the ROCORI school district itself as an employer. A traditional Main Street corridor holds civic buildings, a library branch, and locally owned businesses. Housing in the area is primarily owner-occupied, with home values that have seen modest appreciation and are broadly comparable to state-level benchmarks. The town is car-dependent, with Highway 23 as the main artery and Interstate 94 accessible for longer trips.

The district brief for ROCORI turned up no major recent changes such as boundary adjustments, program restructuring, or leadership turnover that would have a direct bearing on Cold Spring Elementary. The school operates within a stable district structure.

For a family considering this school, the picture is one of a conventional public elementary with academic proficiency that ranks favorably within its county. The student body reflects the surrounding area’s demographics, and the economic context is a mix of established manufacturing and services. Gaps in the available data—particularly around special education, English learner services, and student discipline—are worth a conversation with the school to get a fuller sense of how it supports all its students.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 357%

School 57% · District 62% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▲ 17 pts above county median

Grade 456%

School 56% · District 56%

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Grade 543%

School 43% · District 47% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▲ 8 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 340%

School 40% · District 45% · ▼ 5 pts below district

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

Grade 444%

School 44% · District 43% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 3 pts above state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Grade 548%

School 48% · District 50% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▼ 6 pts below state median · even with county median

Science

Grade 519%

School 19% · District 20% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

This schoolROCORI PUBLIC SCHOOL DISTRICT, 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 3Lower-income19%Higher-income53%33 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income25%Higher-income55%30 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income34%Higher-income56%22 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income62%Higher-income94%32 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income39%Higher-income68%29 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income40%Higher-income66%26 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income29%Higher-income52%23 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income46%Higher-income78%32 pp gap