The top reported proficiency rate is 32% in English language arts. The lowest is 15% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on New Branches Charter Academy
New Branches Charter Academy is a single-school charter district in Kent County, Michigan, serving kindergarten through eighth grade. The enrollment is small for its grade band, which means class sizes tend to be modest and students move through the building together as a close cohort. The student body is predominantly Black, with a large Hispanic contingent and smaller shares of white, multiracial, and Asian students. This is a diverse setting by any measure, and families considering the school should know the peer environment reflects that mix. Free-or-reduced-price lunch data, special-education counts, and English-learner figures were all missing from the available data, so we cannot speak to the economic profile of enrolled families or the level of specialized services those populations receive. A parent may want to ask the school directly about those supports.
The academy was reauthorized in by Central Michigan University, with a renewal that extends its charter through. That gives families some assurance of operational continuity if they are enrolling a younger child who would spend several years here.
On state assessments, the clearest pattern is a split between English language arts and mathematics. ELA proficiency starts low in the early grades but climbs steadily as students advance. By the time students reach the upper grades, the share testing proficient in ELA rises to a level that is genuinely strong for a school of this size and demographics. The middle-grade ELA results in particular stand out as a bright spot, suggesting that something in the upper-grade instruction is helping students build reading and writing skills effectively. Social studies follows a somewhat similar arc, with proficiency rising meaningfully between the tested grades. Science sits in a middling range, with the upper grade outperforming the earlier one.
Mathematics tells a different story. Proficiency in math is low across nearly every grade tested, hovering in a narrow band from third through seventh grade, with only a modest uptick in eighth. This is the weakest part of the academic picture here, and it is consistent rather than a one-year dip. A parent whose child needs strong math progression may want to look into how the school structures math instruction, what intervention supports are available, and how the curriculum builds from year to year.
Measured against Kent County's districts, the school's overall proficiency sits below the midpoint. The county is a large set of several dozen districts, and New Branches falls toward the lower end on combined proficiency. Chronic absenteeism is also above the county midpoint, which is worth attention because absenteeism compounds academic gaps, especially in a small school where each absent student shifts the classroom dynamic. Per-pupil spending lands in the lower half of the county range, which may reflect the realities of charter financing rather than any particular priority choice, but it does mean the school operates with fewer dollars per child than many of its neighboring districts.
Because New Branches does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and no AP or career-pathway data to draw on. The school's job is to prepare students for the transition to a secondary setting elsewhere. The upper-grade ELA performance suggests that in at least one core subject, students are leaving better prepared than when they arrived. The math weakness, though, is something families should weigh carefully, particularly if their child is approaching the middle grades and will soon move on to a larger high school where foundational math skills matter.
There is no locale brief or housing data tied to this entity, so we cannot describe the surrounding community, commute patterns, or cost of living. The school's address and city were not available in the data provided. Families would need to look at the school's own website or contact the front office for specifics about location, transportation, and before- or after-school programming, none of which appeared in the available records. Program offerings beyond what state testing captures were also absent, so whether the school offers art, music, physical education, foreign language, or extracurriculars is not something we can confirm from this data.
What the evidence supports is a small, diverse charter school with a genuine upward trajectory in literacy and a persistent weakness in math, operating on a lean budget with absenteeism higher than the county typical. For a family seeking a close-knit environment where ELA instruction appears to produce results in the upper grades, New Branches may fit. For a family whose priority is math acceleration or a broad elective menu, the available data suggests looking further and asking harder questions.
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