Original Research by School Decision on Journeys Secondary School
Journeys Secondary School is a special education school in Saint Paul, Minnesota, serving students in grades eight through twelve as part of Saint Paul Public Schools. It is not a typical neighborhood or charter school; it is a specialized setting designed for students who require the structure and support of a special education environment. For a parent considering this school, understanding that distinction is the foundation of any decision.
The school is small, with a total enrollment that places it among the smaller secondary schools in the city. The vast majority of students are in the twelfth grade, with much smaller numbers in the earlier high school grades and no eighth graders recorded in the enrollment data. The student body is primarily Black, followed by White, Hispanic, and smaller shares of students who are Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, or identify as two or more races. A very high proportion of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a marker the state uses to indicate low household income.
Because Journeys Secondary School is a special education school, standard academic measures follow a different pattern. State assessment results for math, English language arts, and science are suppressed. The number of students tested in each subject was extremely small—publicly reported counts show only one or two students took these assessments in eighth grade. State data suppression rules protect student privacy when groups are very small, so no proficiency rates or scale scores are available for this school. A parent should not interpret missing test results as a sign of weak or strong performance; the school’s population is simply too small for the state to release the numbers. This is a common situation in specialized schools.
No graduation rate is reported in the data. The school serves students through twelfth grade, but the absence of that metric may reflect the school’s structure or the way outcomes are tracked for special education students in Saint Paul Public Schools. A parent who needs a concrete graduation figure for planning would want to ask the school directly.
Saint Paul, where the school is located, is Minnesota’s capital and the second-largest city in the state. It is a dense, diverse city with a mix of government buildings, residential neighborhoods, and cultural institutions. The state capitol complex sits on a hill downtown, and major employers include state and county government. The city’s park system ranked high nationally, and its neighborhoods include historic districts along Summit Avenue as well as more modest areas. Housing values in the school’s zip code area are modest relative to the state benchmark, and rents are also below the state average, reflecting the range of household incomes in the city and the older housing stock.
Saint Paul Public Schools, the district that operates Journeys Secondary School, has made recent changes to its school options. The district opened a new environmental STEM magnet middle school in Woodbury, converted Jackson Elementary into the East African Elementary Magnet, and renamed Ramsey Middle School to Hidden River Middle School. While these changes do not directly affect Journeys Secondary School, they reflect a district that is actively adjusting its magnet and program offerings. Journeys itself remains a special education school within that system, not a magnet or a choice program in the same sense.
For a family trying to understand what this school offers, the evidence points to a focused, small environment for students who need special education supports at the secondary level. The academic data that is standard for most schools does not apply here in a conventional way. A parent would want to have a direct conversation with the school about the curriculum, the nature of the special education services, the transition planning for students who age out, and what postsecondary outcomes look like for its graduates. The school’s role is specialized, and the right fit depends entirely on a student’s individual needs and the match with what Journeys provides.
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