The top reported proficiency rate is 18% in English language arts. The lowest is 11% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on University Yes Academy
University Yes Academy is a single-school charter district in Wayne County, Michigan, serving students from kindergarten through eighth grade in practice, even though its official grade span extends through twelfth. The high school grades show no enrolled students, so families looking for a secondary pathway here will not find one. This is an elementary and middle school environment, small in size for its grade band, and the enrollment is carried across relatively even grade cohorts from kindergarten up through eighth.
The student body is almost entirely Black. The demographic data shows virtually no other racial or ethnic representation, with only a handful of students identifying as two or more races and a single white student. Information on free or reduced-price lunch eligibility was not available, and the same is true for special education and English learner counts, so a parent would need to ask the school directly about those supports.
On state assessments, University Yes Academy's results are low across every tested subject and grade. In English language arts, proficiency sits in the teens to low twenties for most grades, with the eighth grade results reaching the highest level among the tested grades and the seventh grade the lowest. Math is weaker. Proficiency declines steadily from third grade toward the upper grades, and by seventh and eighth grade the share of students reaching proficiency falls to the very bottom of the reporting range. Science and social studies follow a similar pattern, with results clustered in the low teens or lower. When placed among Wayne County's districts on an overall proficiency index, University Yes Academy lands in the bottom quartile. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, particularly to understand what supports or interventions are in place for math as students move into the middle grades.
Chronic absenteeism is elevated. The reported rate places the district below the midpoint among Wayne County's districts, meaning a larger share of students miss school chronically than at most peer districts. This is something families should take seriously, because attendance patterns at this level can compound the academic challenges the test results already show.
On the spending side, per-pupil current expenditure sits in the middle range, upper half among Wayne County's districts. The district is investing at a level comparable to or modestly above many of its peers, so the low proficiency results do not appear to stem from an obvious funding shortfall relative to neighboring districts. Whether those dollars are reaching the classroom in ways that move outcomes is a question the data cannot answer.
No graduation rate is reported. This is consistent with the fact that the district has no enrolled high school students, so a four-year graduation rate does not apply to this entity as currently configured.
The district brief turned up little of lasting parent-relevant change. There were no clear reports of curriculum overhauls, property tax shifts, bond referendums, or leadership transitions in the available material. This is a quiet profile from a public-information standpoint, which means families will need to go directly to the school for details about programming, discipline, staffing, course access, and any recent initiatives.
No locale brief or community context was available, so there is no housing-market or neighborhood description to draw on here. No civil-rights data, course-access data, or program-offering data was provided either. These gaps mean the picture is incomplete on several fronts a parent might care about, from advanced coursework to discipline practices to the surrounding community. What the data does show clearly is a small, nearly entirely Black charter school serving kindergarten through eighth grade in Wayne County, with academic results that trail most of the county's districts and chronic absenteeism that runs above what most nearby districts experience. Families considering this school should weigh those realities carefully and ask the school directly about its improvement plans, attendance interventions, and academic supports before deciding.
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