Secondary Lighthouse

Secondary Lighthouse is a small public school in Spring Lake Park, Minnesota, a northern Twin Cities suburb, serving grades 7–12 with about 34 students as part of Spring Lake Park Public Schools, a district ranked 264th of 458 in Minnesota. It is by far the smallest school in its local comparison group, and its free/reduced-lunch rate of 14.71% in 2024–2025 is much lower than nearby alternative programs such as Spring Lake Park High School ALP (62.5%), Mounds View Alternative Learning Center (62.28%), and Metro Heights Academy (62.63%).

Reported test proficiency at Secondary Lighthouse is strikingly high. In 2025–2026, math was 88.5%, reading 100%, and science 70.6%, compared with district results of 36.5%, 39%, and 17.3%, and state results of 44.9%, 48.6%, and 25.5%. Against Spring Lake Park Senior High, the district's 1,909-student comprehensive high school, the school is higher by 56.3 points in math, 61.6 points in reading, and 45.1 points in science. Reading has hit 100% in each of the last two reported years. Among nearby alternatives, Mounds View Alternative Learning Center reported 0% math proficiency in 2025–2026, and Metro Heights Academy's scores were suppressed.

Those numbers come with real caveats. With only 34 students, one student can shift a percentage by several points, and many grade-level results are suppressed by the state for privacy — suppression is not a zero. Science is the trend to watch: it slipped from 91.67% in 2022–2023 to 70.6% in 2025–2026, though it remains far above district and state levels. No graduation or dropout data are available for Secondary Lighthouse, so completion outcomes cannot be assessed; by comparison, Spring Lake Park Senior High reports 88.5% graduation and SLP Schools Online Secondary 86.6%. The reported student-teacher ratio of 340 in 2024–2025 is almost certainly a data error and should be ignored. The lower free/reduced-lunch rate also means comparisons with other alternative programs are not apples-to-apples.