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Is Your State Providing Equal Access to Education?

This database was last updated in January 2013 and should only be used as a historical snapshot of data from the 2009-10 school year. For more recent data on public and charter schools, check out Miseducation.

ProPublica analyzed federal education data from the 2009-2010 school year to examine whether states provide high-poverty schools equal access to advanced courses and special programs that researchers say will help them later in life. This is the first nationwide picture of exactly which courses are being taken at which schools and districts across the country. More than three-quarters of all public school children are represented. Read our story and our methodology.

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Apollo Senior High

1000 44TH AVENUE N, ST. CLOUD, MINN., 56303 | Grades 9-12

Districts with 3,000 or more students | This page updated Jul. 20, 2011
Students Total Teachers Inexp. Teachers AP Courses
This School
1,250
69
1% 12
District 9,280 622 5% 3
State 526K 30,385 7% 9
 
State Average
 
District Average

Percentage of relevant students who...

Get Free/Reduced Price Lunch

30%
44%

40%

Take at Least One AP Course

23%
42%

27%

AP Pass Rate

59%
0%

0%

Take Advanced Math

20%
7%

14%

Are in a Gifted/Talented Program

16%
42%

42%

Take Chemistry

21%
4%

9%

Take Physics

11%
2%

5%

Participate in sports

60%
0.0%

66%

Are

1%
1%

1% Am Indian
8%
4%

7% Asian
12%
16%

15% Black
7%
4%

4% Hispanic
71%
75%

74% White

Apollo Senior High, in St. Cloud, Minnesota, is part of the St. Cloud Public School District. The school reports enrolling 1,250 students in grades nine through 12, and it has 69 teachers on staff.

Apollo Senior High is above the state average but below the district average in terms of the percentage of its students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. On average, 30 percent of students in Minnesota qualify for free or reduced-price lunch programs, whereas 40 percent of Apollo Senior High students do. At the district level, 44 percent of students qualify.

ProPublica's analysis found that all too often, states and schools provide poor students fewer educational programs like Advanced Placement, gifted and talented programs, and advanced math and science classes. Studies have linked participation in these programs with better outcomes later in life. Our analysis uses free and reduced-price lunch to estimate poverty at schools. We based our findings on the most comprehensive data set of access to advanced classes and special programs in U.S. public schools — known as the Civil Rights Data Set— released by the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights.

Apollo Senior High offers 12 AP courses, and 27 percent of students participate in those classes.

Apollo Senior High has an enrollment rate of 14 percent for math classes, and 9 percent of students take chemistry. The enrollment rate for physics at the school is 5 percent, and the gifted and talented program has a participation rate of 42 percent.

Ell Transition Program, in Roseville, Minn., is a higher-poverty school than Apollo Senior High, with 92 percent of its students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school hasn't reported or may not offer AP classes.

These data points were reported by schools and districts to the Office for Civil Rights. For more information about the data, see our full methodology.

— Generated by Narrative Science