The top reported proficiency rate is 12% in English language arts. The lowest is 4% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Monroe Elem.
Monroe Elementary serves students from prekindergarten through sixth grade as a regular public school in the St. Louis City district. The school is located on Missouri Avenue in the city’s southern half, in a neighborhood of older residential streets and mixed commercial blocks. St. Louis itself is an independent city with a diversified economy anchored by major employers such as the Federal Reserve Bank, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and Barnes-Jewish Hospital, as well as research universities including Washington University and Saint Louis University. The city has a broad set of civic and cultural institutions — the Gateway Arch, Forest Park, the Saint Louis Zoo, the Missouri Botanical Garden — that add to the area’s attractions.
The school enrolls roughly two hundred students, a small size for its grade band. Enrollment is concentrated in the early grades, with a sizable prekindergarten and kindergarten program and progressively smaller groups through the upper elementary grades. The sixth grade appears to have just a handful of students, suggesting that most children leave Monroe after fifth grade. Every student in the school qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, a level of economic need that is unusually high. The student body is predominantly Black, with a small share of white students and an even smaller share of multiracial students; other racial and ethnic groups make up a negligible portion.
State test results are available for only a few grade levels and subjects, and where they are reported they reveal significant challenges. In third-grade math, a very small share of students scored at the proficient level or above. Results for third and fourth graders in English language arts were also low, with the share of students meeting the state’s proficiency bar in the single digits for both grades. Results for fourth-grade math, fifth-grade math, fifth-grade English language arts, and fifth-grade science were suppressed by the state, likely because the tested group was too small to report. A school-level proficiency index, which compresses all available test scores into a single figure, places Monroe in the bottom quarter among elementary schools in the St. Louis City district. Parents looking at these results will want to discuss academic supports and interventions directly with the school to understand what is being done to raise achievement.
Monroe does not serve high school grades, so it has no graduation rate to report. No data on chronic absenteeism, discipline, staffing ratios, or course access was available in the source materials. Similarly, information on magnet or Title I status was not provided.
Housing in the immediate area is moderately priced relative to the St. Louis region. Home values have been trending slightly downward in the most recent period, while rents have risen modestly. For a family considering moving into the attendance zone, the affordability of the neighborhood relative to the rest of the city may be one factor to weigh against the academic challenges the school is facing.
The St. Louis City district itself did not surface any recent parent-relevant changes in the publicly available materials searched, such as boundary adjustments, program launches, or leadership transitions that would alter the school’s near-term direction. That may mean stability at the district level, or simply that such changes were not captured in the sources consulted.
Monroe Elementary is a high-need school serving a young, economically disadvantaged population in a stable urban district with substantial civic and cultural resources. The academic proficiency data points to a school where most students are not yet meeting grade-level benchmarks, a pattern that merits close attention from families and that the district may be addressing through its own improvement efforts. For a parent weighing options, the school’s small scale and early-grade focus may offer a more contained environment than larger elementary buildings, but the test results are a clear signal to investigate further.
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