First off – thanks for visiting our site; we’re glad you’re here! Whether you are new to the process of researching St. Louis schools, have already narrowed your search down to just a few schools, or maybe just looking for info about a particular school, we’ve designed this site to be a useful tool for you, no matter your school search needs. To help you make the most of your visit, here is a quick overview of some of the useful sections on this site. This will help you learn how to “navigate” our website.

School Search Tool

Since this is the core feature of this site, we intentionally placed the school search tool right on our homepage. Perfect for a quick search, it enables you to navigate by grade and address, or, if you know it, by school name.

Clicking on the “School Search” tab at the top of the homepage will take you to a more detailed school search page. Here, in addition to the quick search options above, you can also filter by school type (public district, public charter, public choice/magnet, or private independent), availability of before/after school care, distance from home, and how the schools compare in a variety of criteria vs. either the St. Louis city average or the Missouri state average.

Once you’ve come up with a filtered list of schools that match your criteria, you can sort the list in a number of ways: by distance from home, student learning scores, safety & climate indices, total enrollment or student-to-teacher ratios. You can also choose to view your filtered school list on a map.

Resources To Help With Your Search

No matter where you might be in your journey towards selecting a school for your child, we’ve got the help you need. By clicking on the “Resources” link at the top of the homepage, you’ll discover a collection of topics:

• Determining School Priorities – this section will take you through prompts that investigate your values by guiding you through three key considerations: school vision, school logistics, and the unique needs of your child. We’ve included links to downloadable worksheets to help organize your answers.
• Researching Schools – this section will break down and define the various types of schools in St. Louis, help you choose the types of schools that best fit your family’s priorities, and walk you through how to construct a school search that reflects your preferences.
• Visiting Schools – here you’ll find out about the different types of school visits available, as well as sample questions to ask along the way. There are links to downloadable worksheets you can fill out to help organize your list of schools to visit, as well as to build your custom list of questions based on the type of school, type of visit, and your family’s own unique concerns.
• Enrollment & Application – each type of school has a different enrollment or application process. In this section, we walk through the different processes and provide important deadlines and contact information.
• Specific Services Available – if your child needs access to services such as gifted education, free/reduced lunch, tutoring, English as a second language instruction, etc., you can find more information about these services here, including how to request them.
• Standardized Learning Assessments – learn about mandatory testing: which tests are administered for which grades, why they’re important, and what is done with the test results.
• Elementary/Middle School/High School Resources – Learn about specific resources available to you based on the grade level of your child and specific questions to consider when choosing an elementary, middle, or high school.
• Key Terms & Definitions – don’t know the difference between ACT, AP, MAP, IEP? Don’t worry – we’ve got you covered. In this section, we provide definitions for key terms/acronyms you will encounter during your search.

Important Dates Calendar

The “Calendar” tab displays a listing of important upcoming dates for your school search, broken into two categories: school enrollment dates/deadlines and school events. You can choose to display either group of dates or both, depending on your interest.

News & Updates

For more in-depth articles with information on topics pertaining to schools in St. Louis, visit the “News & Updates” section of our website. Here you’ll find articles on everything from the current state of St. Louis schools to tips on applying for schools. To be sure you don’t miss a thing, click on the “Subscribe to Our Newsletter” button and sign up; we promise we won’t give your info to anyone else, but we will deliver content that is sure to inform and enlighten you.

And there’s your overview of the Navigate STL Schools website. We aim to provide you with all the information and tools you need to make your family’s St. Louis school “navigation” as smooth and easy as possible. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us through email, social media, or by filling out the form on our Contact page.