Original Research by School Decision on Early Ed Highland
Early Ed Highland is a special education school within Saint Paul Public Schools, serving children exclusively in prekindergarten. It is a small, focused program, not a general-education elementary school, and its academic and assessment profile reflects that purpose. State testing data was not available because the school does not serve tested grades, and no graduation rate applies for the same reason. A family considering this program should understand it as an early-intervention and early-childhood special education setting, not a typical pre-K classroom.
The school enrolls a small group of children. Most students are white, with the remainder representing Black, Asian, Hispanic, and multiracial backgrounds. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Because the school is a special education school by designation, and no separate count of students with an individualized education program (IEP) was reported in the data, a parent may want to clarify directly with the school how eligibility and placement work and what specific disabilities or developmental delays the program is designed to serve. The available information does not specify the school's therapeutic or instructional model beyond its classification.
The school sits within Saint Paul, Minnesota's capital and second-largest city, part of the Twin Cities metro area. Saint Paul is a dense, diverse urban environment with a strong government-employer base, a well-regarded park system, and cultural institutions such as the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Ordway Center. Housing in the surrounding zip code is priced above both the state and national benchmarks, reflecting the desirability of the Highland Park neighborhood and the broader Saint Paul market. Rents are elevated relative to income, and a typical monthly mortgage payment would likely exceed local rents. This is a comparatively expensive part of the metro area, which may be a factor for families deciding where to live while accessing the program.
The parent district, Saint Paul Public Schools, has recently added and renamed school options. The district opened an 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. These changes signal a district active in reshaping its school portfolio, but none directly affect Early Ed Highland, which is a specialized early childhood program rather than a grade-span school responding to attendance boundaries.
Because no academic proficiency data, chronic absenteeism data, or staffing ratios were reported, a full picture of the school's operational health and student outcomes is unavailable from the public data used here. That gap is not unusual for a prekindergarten special education program, where state accountability testing does not apply, but it means a parent or guardian will need to rely on direct conversation with the school and the district's special education department to understand progress monitoring, staff qualifications, and program effectiveness. The data does not include information about discipline, course access, or attendance, so those areas are also open questions.
For a family whose child has been identified as needing early childhood special education services within Saint Paul Public Schools, Early Ed Highland represents a small, specialized placement option in an expensive but amenity-rich urban neighborhood. For a family seeking a general pre-K program, a typical early childhood center, or any program serving older grades, this school is not the right fit. Its purpose is narrow, its enrollment is very small, and its public-facing academic data is absent by design. That does not indicate weakness, but it does mean the school is best evaluated through direct inquiry and a strong partnership with the district's early childhood special education team.
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