The reported proficiency rate for English language arts is 10%.
Original Research by School Decision on Litzsinger
Litzsinger is one of the many elementary and middle schools operated by the Special School District of St. Louis County, a separate entity that serves students with significant disabilities across the county. But a look at its student body shows a different school from the Special School District’s typical profile. The enrollment, about the size of a very small grade school for its kindergarten-through-eighth-grade span, is almost entirely made up of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals. That rate is very high. Racially, the school is split between Black students and White students, with a small Asian presence and a very small Hispanic and multiracial one. No data on the share of students with individualized education plans or English learners was reported.
State test results for the most recent school year are mostly suppressed, which happens when a tested group is very small. This is the situation here. A few grade-level English/language arts scores were reported, and they were low. In third grade and fifth grade, only a small fraction of students scored proficient or above; eighth grade was similar. Seventh grade was higher but still very low. Math and science results for all grades were suppressed, so there is no clear picture of performance in those subjects from this year. A parent should be aware that the school’s overall academic proficiency index, an average of the few reported rates, lands in the bottom quarter of districts in St. Louis County. Because the school is part of a special district, it serves a highly specific population; direct comparison with a regular neighborhood elementary or middle school may not be fully informative.
The school is located in Ladue, an affluent inner-ring suburb of St. Louis that is overwhelmingly residential with large homes on sizable lots. Ladue has no downtown to speak of; daily life requires driving, and the commercial presence is limited to a few nodes. This is not a place where a family walks to a coffee shop. The housing market reflects the community’s wealth: home values are among the highest in the state, well above both the national and Missouri benchmarks. Rents follow a similar pattern. For a family considering Litzsinger, the neighborhood is one of the most expensive in the region, a fact that parents will need to reconcile with the school’s very high poverty rate among its own students. The school draws from a much wider area than just Ladue itself, given the Special School District’s countywide structure.
No parent-relevant changes at the district level were found in recent reporting. The district itself is not a typical local school board; it operates county-wide special education programs and also runs a set of schools like Litzsinger that serve a specialized student population. There is no graduation rate to report because the school ends at eighth grade. For a family whose child is assigned to or considering the Special School District, Litzsinger sits in a very wealthy and low-density corner of St. Louis County, but the student body it serves is almost entirely from low-income households. The test results, while fragmentary, suggest that academic proficiency is a soft spot, and any parent would want a direct conversation with the school about how instruction and support are tailored to this particular student group. The data available does not answer that question.
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