Sartell‑St. Stephen reports rising special‑education share, steady graduation in Northstar review

Presenter, a Sartell‑St. Stephen School District staff member, presented the district profile and Northstar accountability results at the school board meeting. The district reported a special‑education enrollment of 21% this year, up from 18% last year, and 22.2% of students qualifying for educational benefits.

The presenter said the district’s Northstar math accountability rate was 62.9%, while the percentage based on students actually tested was 64.5%. The difference reflects students who meet or do not meet state inclusion criteria for accountability calculations and a small number of opt‑outs: 48 students opted out of the reading assessment (about 2.2% of the district) and about 55 students opted out of math testing. The district reported it ranked 17th out of 326 traditional public school districts in Minnesota for math performance on the measure used for comparison.

District staff described how the state’s Northstar (sometimes written Northstar) system, developed by the Minnesota Department of Education to align with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act and the state’s Comprehensive Achievement and Civic Readiness Act (referred to in the presentation as KCER), calculates accountability. The presenter said students are included in Northstar calculations only if they meet three state criteria, including enrollment on the first day of the larger assessment window; the presenter used the ACCESS test enrollment date (January 27) as an example for multilingual learners.

Multilingual‑learner figures were described in detail: there were 64 multilingual learners in the district last year, 62 had valid test scores, 51 met the state inclusion criteria for accountability, and 29 reached their targets and could exit English‑learner status under state measures. The presenter cautioned that the district’s English‑learner population is “fluid,” and that inclusion rules can change how results appear.

Attendance and graduation numbers were highlighted. Using the 2023‑24 dataset, the presenter said 80.7% of students had 90% or higher attendance. The graduating class of 2023‑24 had a graduation rate of 97.1%, which the presenter described as an area of pride for the district.

Board members asked about a perceived discrepancy in special‑education rates among buildings. The presenter said district staff found data‑transfer and classification issues in how Skyward data was pulled into the Minnesota Department of Education submission last year. Administrators spent much of the prior school year aligning how the district counts absences and how they map to the state system so that similar time missed at different schools is treated consistently.

No formal action or vote was recorded on the accountability presentation; board members asked follow‑up questions and discussed next steps for data alignment and communicating results to the public.