Community Of Peace Academy

Community Of Peace Academy is a three-school district in Saint Paul, Minnesota, serving about 855 students: an elementary school (PK–4, 326 students), a middle school (5–8, 279 students), and a high school (9–12, 250 students). As a district, it ranks 415 of 458 in Minnesota — the 9th percentile, with 0 stars — and poverty is important context: free/reduced lunch is 81.6% at the elementary, 78.49% at the middle, and 78% at the high school.

The Community of Peace Academy Middle is the relative bright spot and the only school above district averages in all three subjects in 2025–2026: 17.5% in math, 29% in reading, and 6.6% in science, with 8th-grade results of 31.8% math and 36.9% reading — the highest grade-level scores in the group. Its rank percentile rose from 8 in 2023–2024 to 15 to 21, and it earns 1 star. The Community of Peace Academy High School has a split profile: a 2024–2025 graduation rate of 86.4%, above the state's 84.9%, though its dropout rate is 5.0% versus 4.2% statewide. Test proficiency is low — 15.7% math, 13.7% reading, 3.9% science — and reading dropped 23.8 percentage points, from 37.5% to 13.7%, the largest swing in the data. The Community of Peace Academy Elementary is the largest and highest-poverty school with the smallest student-teacher ratio (11.7:1), yet ranks at the 5th percentile with 0 stars; it improved in math (12.63% to 15%) and reading (12.63% to 18.6%). Science results were not available in this extract for the elementary school.

All three schools remain well below state proficiency: math ranges from 15% to 17.5% against 44.9% statewide, reading from 13.7% to 29% against 48.6%, and science from 3.9% to 6.6% against 25.5%. The middle school has the smallest gaps; the high school has the largest reading gap, about 34.9 percentage points. The Community Of Peace Academy district average of 0 stars masks this school-level variation, where the middle school's progress and the high school's graduation rate are the clearest positive signals.