North Star Montessori Academy

North Star Montessori Academy is a public charter school serving grades PK-12 in Marquette, Michigan, with 191 students. The school follows the Montessori teaching philosophy, which emphasizes hands-on, self-directed learning.

North Star Montessori Academy has faced some challenges common to alternative and charter schools, such as lower graduation rates ranging from 75% to 82.8% (lower than the state average of 80-85%) and higher dropout rates ranging from 7.6% to 16.6% (higher than the state average of 5-7%). The school also has very high chronic absenteeism rates, ranging from 29.5% to 49.2%, which is significantly higher than the state average of 15-20%. However, the school's test scores on the M-Step and PSAT assessments, while generally lower than the state averages, do show some strengths, such as higher proficiency rates in 5th-grade English Language Arts and Science.

Interestingly, the nearby MarquetteAlger Administrative Unit, which also serves an alternative student population, has similar graduation and dropout rates to North Star Montessori Academy, suggesting that the challenges faced by these types of schools may be common in the region. Additionally, North Star Montessori Academy's spending per student has increased from around $10,600 in 2021-2022 to $12,776 in 2023-2024, which is higher than the state average, and the school has a relatively low student-teacher ratio, ranging from 10.9 to 11.8 over the past few years, which may contribute to its ability to provide more individualized attention to its students.