Original Research by School Decision on St Croix Correctional Center
St. Croix Correctional Center is an alternative school in New Richmond, Wisconsin, serving grades seven through twelve under the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. This is not a typical public school; it is a school located within a state correctional facility. The parent district is the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, not the local New Richmond School District, so the school operates separately from the district that most families in the area would associate with their neighborhood schools.
The school’s enrollment is reported as zero across every grade, from seventh through twelfth. That figure almost certainly reflects the way the facility’s population is counted in the national education data system rather than indicating that no students attend. Correctional facilities often do not report traditional enrollment counts to the same database that public and charter schools use. No demographic breakdowns—race, ethnicity, free or reduced-price lunch eligibility, special education, or English learner status—are available. That absence is consistent with the school’s status as a correctional institution, where standard reporting may follow different rules.
State assessment results are not available for St. Croix Correctional Center. The comparison that places schools relative to other districts in St. Croix County found that overall proficiency, graduation rate, and chronic absenteeism metrics are all missing and therefore not applicable. A parent or resident looking for typical academic performance indicators will find none here. The school does serve high school grades, so a graduation rate might be expected, but the data simply does not include one. Given the correctional setting, standard accountability measures may not be reported in the same way, or the student population may be too transient for meaningful aggregation. No program offerings, discipline data, staffing numbers, or attendance figures were present in the information provided.
The school is located at a street address in New Richmond, a small city in St. Croix County that sits within the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area. New Richmond has a traditional downtown, a mix of manufacturing, healthcare, and retail employment, and a car-dependent layout. The city has seen steady growth in recent years and markets itself as “The City Beautiful” with natural areas and community amenities. Housing values in the area are roughly in line with national benchmarks and above the state median, reflecting the broader metro influence. But those community characteristics apply to the place, not to the school itself. St. Croix Correctional Center is a state-run facility for a specialized student population, not a school that the typical New Richmond resident would attend or send their children to.
For anyone reading this narrative who is researching K–12 options in the area, this school stands apart. It is not a choice for the general public. Its role is to provide education for youth who are in the custody of the state corrections system. The absence of testing data, graduation rates, and typical enrollment figures is not a sign of weak performance; it is a sign that this school operates under a different framework. A family or resident seeking a traditional school should look to the New Richmond School District or other local charter and private options. For those specifically interested in correctional education, St. Croix Correctional Center is the facility serving that purpose in this region, though publicly available documentation on its programs and outcomes is sparse.
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