The top reported proficiency rate is 40% in English language arts. The lowest is 13% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Sela Pcs
Sela PCS is a single-site public charter school in the District of Columbia serving pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. The enrollment is small and weighted heavily toward the early years, with the largest group in pre-kindergarten and a steady decline in headcount as you move up the grades. By fifth grade the cohort is quite small, which means any state testing results in the upper grades rest on very few students and should be read with that in mind.
The student body is predominantly Black, with a substantial White population and a smaller Hispanic group. A handful of students identify as two or more races, and a single student identifies as Asian. The school does not report free-or-reduced-price lunch data, nor does it share information on students with disabilities or English learners, so it is hard to gauge the full socioeconomic or support picture from the available data. A parent looking into Sela would want to ask the school directly about how it serves students with special needs and what share of families receive economic support.
On the most recent DC assessments, the 2024-25 DCCAPE, math proficiency sits in a moderate range in third and fourth grade before dropping noticeably in fifth. English language arts follows a different pattern, with a strong fourth-grade result and lower proficiency in third and fifth. Because the tested groups are small, a few children moving in or out can shift these results from year to year. Science was last reported for 2022-23 at a low proficiency level, though that result is now several years old and predates the current assessment cycle. There is no graduation rate to report, which is expected for a school that ends at fifth grade, and there are no high school course offerings or AP data to discuss.
Publicly reported information from the school points to two recent recognition milestones. Sela was named a Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education in 2022, a federal designation recognizing academic excellence. More recently, the school's OSSE Report Card score rose sharply in 2024-25, and this was reported as one of the highest increases across the District. That upward movement on the state report card is a positive signal, even as the individual grade-level proficiency rates remain mixed across subjects and grades.
There is no housing, rental, or community economic data available for this entity, so a family considering relocation or school-choice decisions related to Sela would need to look elsewhere for neighborhood context. The school's physical address is also not provided in the available data, so proximity and commute questions cannot be answered here.
Sela presents an interesting combination: a small, early-grade-heavy charter school with recent public recognition and an upward trajectory on the state report card, alongside mixed proficiency results that vary by grade and subject. The concentration of students in pre-kindergarten suggests the school draws families in at the earliest entry point, and the shrinking upper-grade cohorts could reflect families transitioning to other options before middle school, or could simply reflect the natural attrition of a small program. A parent weighing Sela would do well to visit, ask about the pre-K to elementary continuity, and understand what the school's recent report card improvement looks like at the grade level their child would enter.
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