The top reported proficiency rate is 41% in English language arts. The lowest is 23% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on City Garden Montessori Eaec
City Garden Montessori EAEC serves students in first through eighth grade as a charter school in St. Louis. The school follows the Montessori model, meaning classrooms typically combine multiple age groups, students move at their own pace through hands-on materials, and teachers act as guides rather than lecturers. Because it is a charter, it is publicly funded and open to any student in the city, but it operates independently of the traditional St. Louis Public Schools district.
The student body is diverse. Roughly half of the students identify as Black, a little more than a third as White, and the remainder as Hispanic, Asian, or two or more races. About half qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school in a middle range for economic need among St. Louis schools. The total enrollment is moderate for a school covering eight grades, and class sizes appear to be small in the upper grades based on the number of students tested on state assessments.
On the 2024-25 Missouri Assessment Program tests, the school’s results present a mixed picture. In English language arts, third graders had proficiency rates in the low thirties, while sixth graders reached about half of students meeting the state benchmark. In math, fewer students scored proficient: roughly a quarter in third grade and less than a fifth in sixth grade. Science results were similar to math, with about a quarter of fifth graders and a third of eighth graders reaching proficiency. Many grade-level results were suppressed because the number of students tested was too small to report publicly, which is common in a school of this size, but it also means that in some grades there is no public data to examine.
When compared to other districts across St. Louis city, City Garden Montessori’s overall proficiency index—an average of all reported rates—sits above the middle of the pack. This is a positive sign, especially given the share of students from low-income householdshistorically associated with lower test scores nationwide. Still, parents should be aware that math proficiency in particular is low in the grades where data are available geographically. The school’s Montessori approach may place less emphasis on test preparation than a traditional school does, which could explain part of that pattern families who value that philosophy may accept it as a trade-off.
The school is located on Folsom Avenue near downtown St. Louis, in a city known for its major hospitals, research universities, cultural institutions like Forest Park and the Saint Louis Zoo, and a mix of residential neighborhoods and commercial corridors. Housing in the zip code around the school is moderately priced compared to national levels, with rental costs showing recent upward movement. The broader St. Louis economy is anchored by employers such as Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Washington University, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, giving the area a stable job base.
No high school means no graduation rate to report. Information on discipline, staffing ratios, course access, and attendance was not available in the data examined. A search for recent district-level changes that would affect parents turned up no major proposals or policy shifts that met the bar for lasting impact.
This school fits families who are actively seeking a Montessori education in a public school setting, who value student-directed learning and mixed-age classrooms, and who are comfortable with a school whose state test scores are modest but sit above the typical district in St. Louis city. Parents should visit and ask how the school supports students who struggle with math and how it communicates academic progress in a model that does not rely heavily on standardized testing.
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