Green Central Elementary, Minneapolis MN

Original Research by School Decision on Green Central Elementary

Green Central Elementary sits in a dense residential pocket of south Minneapolis, roughly midway between the city’s central lakes and its downtown core. It serves students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade and is part of Minneapolis Public School District, a system that families should know is in a period of significant transition. The district has closed several schools, restructured attendance boundaries and magnet programs, and confronted persistent budget deficits driven by declining enrollment. For a family considering Green Central, understanding both the school’s own profile and the district’s larger fiscal picture matters.

The school’s enrollment is moderate for an elementary building, with classes that range from a pre-K group to a slightly smaller fifth-grade cohort. The student body is predominantly Hispanic, with a substantial white population and much smaller shares of students who identify as two or more races, Black, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Asian. About half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a marker of the income mix in the surrounding neighborhood. Data on the share of students receiving special education services or identified as English learners was not reported, so families who need that information to guide their decision should ask the school directly.

State testing results from a recent school year tell a mixed story. In math, proficiency rates declined as students moved up through the grades, with a stronger result in fourth grade and a weaker result in fifth grade. In reading, the pattern was similar: third-grade proficiency was lower, fourth grade was higher, and fifth grade dropped back down. Science results for fifth graders, the only grade tested in that subject, were markedly lower than the reading and math outcomes. Taken together, the school’s overall proficiency index sits above the midpoint among schools in Hennepin County, but the variation from grade to grade and subject to subject is wide enough that a parent should want to look into how instruction and supports differ across classrooms.

Because Green Central is an elementary school, it does not have a graduation rate, and no chronic absenteeism data was available for this profile.

The school building is located on a commercial stretch of Fourth Avenue South, in a neighborhood that fits the typical Minneapolis urban pattern of older homes, apartment buildings, and small businesses within walking distance. The area’s housing costs reflect the city’s broader market, where home values have risen modestly and rents have been climbing faster. Compared with national benchmarks, buying a home in the zip code is expensive relative to incomes, though it remains less costly than the Minneapolis metro’s most affluent suburbs.

A family looking at Green Central should weigh what it offers as a neighborhood elementary school against the uncertainty that comes with being part of a district that has been actively shrinking. The district’s Comprehensive District Design has reshaped which schools feed into which middle and high schools, so a family should confirm the pathway their child would follow after fifth grade and whether that pathway is stable. The school’s academic results suggest pockets of strength, particularly in fourth-grade math and reading, but also areas where proficiency is low enough that a parent would want to understand what interventions are in place. The student composition is what it is: a largely Hispanic student body in a city school that serves a moderate-income catchment. For a family that values an urban, walkable setting and is comfortable monitoring the district’s fiscal health, Green Central is a plausible option; for a family that prioritizes consistently high test scores or wants a district with fewer structural pressures, it may not fit as well.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 341%

School 41% · District 45% · ▼ 4 pts below district

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

Grade 446%

School 46% · District 43% · ▲ 3 pts above district

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

Grade 526%

School 26% · District 32% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 333%

School 33% · District 40% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 441%

School 41% · District 39% · ▲ 2 pts above district

even with state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 533%

School 33% · District 46% · ▼ 14 pts below district

▼ 21 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

Science

Grade 517%

School 17% · District 26% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

This schoolMinneapolis 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-income12%Higher-income54%42 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income15%Higher-income64%49 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income16%Higher-income72%57 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income15%Higher-income67%52 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income20%Higher-income68%49 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income13%Higher-income56%44 pp gap