Summary:
The Community School of Excellence district in Saint Paul, Minnesota serves roughly 1,455 students across three schools spanning PK–12: Community School of Excellence Elementary (PK–4, 696 students), Community School of Excellence - Middle School (5–8, 560 students), and Community School of Excellence High (9–12, 199 students). All three carry the same district rating — rank 392 of 458, 14th percentile, 1 star — but their individual results differ in meaningful ways.
The Middle School is the relative bright spot. Its 2025–2026 rank of 374 of 546 (32nd percentile) earns 2 stars, the only 2-star rating in this group, up from 1 star the year before. It has the best all-grade reading (32.2%) and math (30.1%) of the three schools and improved in math, reading, and science. Its 8th grade math result of 55.8% is the only reported school figure above the state's 42.3%. The Elementary is the largest school and reports the lowest student/teacher ratio (10.4), yet its 2025–2026 rank is the weakest — 802 of 869, 8th percentile, 0 stars — and its rank percentile has slid from 14 to 11 to 8. The High School shows the opposite pattern: strong outcomes alongside weak proficiency. Its graduation rate of 82.9% is close to the state's 84.9%, and its dropout rate of 2.1% is about half the state's 4.2%, even though its math (19.0%) and reading (13.0%) proficiency are the lowest in the district.
Reading is the broadest weakness, with all-grade proficiency of 18.1% at the Elementary and 13.0% at the High, against 48.6% statewide. Free/reduced lunch is uniformly high at about 85% across all three schools, so economic need does not distinguish them. One figure warrants caution: the Middle School's reported student/teacher ratio of 197.8 is far out of line with the other schools and likely reflects a reporting anomaly rather than actual staffing.
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