Original Research by School Decision on Kaizen Education Foundation Dba Havasu Preparatory (90535)
Kaizen Education Foundation dba Havasu Preparatory is a small district in Arizona that has a single school, Havasu Preparatory Academy, serving kindergarten through eighth grade. The most immediate fact for any family considering this district is its operational status. Publicly reported information from the school's own website states that Havasu Preparatory Academy has closed and is no longer in operation. Families in Lake Havasu City who might have looked at this option now need to seek alternatives.
The district enrolled a small student body across its elementary and middle grades. Its student composition was predominantly White, with a substantial share of Hispanic students and a small presence of students identifying as two or more races, Black, American Indian or Alaska Native, and Asian. Data on the share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch was not available, nor were counts for students with disabilities or English learners.
On state assessments, the picture for this district is largely incomplete due to the small size of its tested population. For the 2024-25 school year, the Arizona state testing results for math, English language arts, and science at nearly every grade level were suppressed. This suppression is common in small schools where reporting results for a small number of test-takers could identify individual students. The district did have a multi-year academic trend line for English language arts that showed a proficiency rate in the low twenties percent across all tested grades for the most recent year. Because so many individual grade-level results were suppressed, it is difficult to make a detailed assessment of academic performance across specific subjects.
The district had no high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to evaluate.
Among Maricopa County's school districts, the available comparative data was limited. The district's chronic absenteeism rate placed it in the top quartile, meaning it had a relatively low share of students missing substantial amounts of school compared to other districts in the county, which is a positive sign for student attendance. On per-pupil current spending, the district was in the middle range, upper half of the county's districts.
The district did not serve high school grades, so it would not offer programs like Advanced Placement, dual enrollment, or career and technical education pathways that are typical at the secondary level. The lack of a high school means students graduating from its eighth grade would need to transition to another school or district for ninth through twelfth grades, which was already the case before the closure.
For a parent, the decisive factor here is the closure of the only school in this district. There is no active school to evaluate for academics, programs, or environment. The district's data provides little to assess its instructional quality because most test results were suppressed. The chronic absenteeism rate was favorable, but the closure renders that and other metrics moot. Any family searching for a school in Lake Havasu City will need to look at other districts or schools in the area.
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