The top reported proficiency rate is 27% in Math. The lowest is 18% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Shaw Visual/perf. Arts Ctr.
Shaw Visual and Performing Arts Center serves students in prekindergarten through fifth grade in the city of St. Louis. It is a regular public school, not a charter school, and sits within the St. Louis City school district. The school’s name points to its focus, and that arts emphasis is the primary distinctive feature a parent would consider here.
The student body is small for the grade band, with all students receiving free or reduced-price lunch. Nearly nine in ten students are Black, and most of the remainder are white, with small shares of Asian, Hispanic, and multiracial students. Data on special education and English learner enrollment was not available from the source, so a parent would want to ask the school directly about those populations and the supports offered.
On state testing, the picture is mixed across grades and subjects. In math, third graders showed proficiency at a rate that fell below half, fourth graders at a lower rate, and fifth graders between those two. In English language arts, the fourth-grade proficiency rate was below one in six students, and fifth graders performed at a rate higher than that but still under one in four. Third-grade ELA results were suppressed in the data, so no figure is available for that grade. In fifth-grade science, roughly one in five students tested proficient. Compared with other elementary schools in St. Louis city that serve tested grades, this school’s combined proficiency across subjects and grades sits above the midpoint of the group. That is a relative strength within a local context where overall proficiency rates are modest, but a parent will see that the absolute percentages are low and may want to talk with the school about what support and intervention programs are in place, particularly in reading and math.
The school serves only elementary grades, so there is no high school graduation rate to report, no advanced placement or career and technical pathways, and no data on chronic absenteeism or discipline in the available records. Because the district brief turned up no recent parent-relevant changes—meeting minutes, boundary adjustments, or programming shifts—there is no reported information about current initiatives or transitions in St. Louis City schools that would affect Shaw.
St. Louis itself is an independent city with a diverse economy anchored by manufacturing, trade, transportation, aviation, and services. Major employers include a mix of federal agencies, the Washington University Medical Center, and several research universities. The city’s cultural attractions, such as Forest Park, the Zoo, the Art Museum, and the Science Center, are publicly reported strengths. The housing market around the school shows home values that are moderately below the statewide benchmark, and rents that are slightly above the national average by certain measures. A family moving into the area would encounter a range of older residential neighborhoods and a city with a long history of population shifts and boundary constraints.
This is a neighborhood elementary school with an arts identity, serving a high-poverty student population in a large urban district. Its strongest point in the available data is that its test results place it ahead of many other district elementary schools in the city, but the absolute proficiency rates remain low, and a parent will want to understand how the school addresses those academic challenges alongside its arts programming. The lack of detail on special education services, discipline, and attendance means those are open questions to raise with the school directly.
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