Davis Academy for Arts & Design Innovation, New Haven CT

Original Research by School Decision on Davis Academy for Arts & Design Innovation

Davis Academy for Arts & Design Innovation is a public elementary and middle school in New Haven serving prekindergarten through eighth grade. The school sits at the nexus of the city's growth. New Haven is actively adding housing units and undergoes significant redevelopment, with downtown upzoning, transit-oriented projects, and neighborhood renovation underway. The city is dense and walkable, with strong civic anchors including the New Haven Green, a major public library system, and transit service through Union Station. This context shapes the families and the demand for neighborhood schools like Davis Academy.

The school enrolls a student population that is majority Black, with a substantial Hispanic share and smaller white and Asian populations. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing this in a lower-income service area within the city. The school serves roughly equal cohorts across its grade span, with slightly larger enrollments in the earlier grades.

Academic performance across tested grades is below the proficiency midpoint within the county. In math, proficiency ranges from very low in grade three to modest in grade four and moderately weak in the middle grades. English language arts results are somewhat stronger, particularly in grade six where proficiency crosses above the midpoint among county schools; in lower grades and grade eight (where data is suppressed due to small cell size), results are low. Science proficiency in the tested grades (five and eight) falls in the lower to lower-middle range. Overall across all tested subjects and grades, the school's proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile among the South Central Connecticut Planning Region's districts.

One context for interpreting these numbers: the New Haven School District undertook a major curriculum overhaul in 2023, replacing its approach to reading instruction with a science-of-reading, phonics-focused model and adopting a single district-wide K-6 literacy program. Reading growth rates have improved in the district since that shift. This is a structural change, not school-specific, and it signals that the district is actively working to address literacy foundations. How and whether Davis Academy specifically has benefited is not clear from the available data. What is clear is that the school's current achievement numbers are low and require close attention from families.

The school carries the name and focus of arts and design, suggesting that creative and design-based learning may be a curricular emphasis, though specific program details and how this integration works were not available in the data provided. Parents would want to explore directly with the school how arts and design are woven through instruction and whether this distinctive feature translates into student engagement and learning outcomes.

The district itself faces budget pressures stemming from the end of pandemic relief funding and rising personnel costs. This has created unfilled positions and raised class-size concerns, though a 2023 contract caps standard class sizes at twenty-six for K-2 and twenty-seven for grades three through twelve through 2026. These systemwide conditions affect all New Haven schools, including Davis Academy, and are worth understanding as part of the school environment.

For families considering Davis Academy, the picture is one of a school serving a lower-income neighborhood within a city undergoing active growth and change, with low test scores that place it well below the county median, paired with a literacy initiative at the district level that shows early promise. The school's arts and design identity may offer pedagogical distinctions worth exploring in conversation with school leadership. A parent may want to look into the school's specific implementation of the district's new literacy program, its approach to arts integration, and how it is moving to close the proficiency gaps evident in the data.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 313%

School 13% · District 21% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▼ 42 pts below state median · ▼ 38 pts below county median

Grade 430%

School 30% · District 20% · ▲ 10 pts above district

▼ 23 pts below state median · ▼ 22 pts below county median

Grade 515%

School 15% · District 13% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▼ 28 pts below state median · ▼ 29 pts below county median

Grade 619%

School 19% · District 17% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 14 pts below county median

Grade 721%

School 21% · District 19% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▼ 22 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 815%

School 15% · District 14% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 25 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 317%

School 17% · District 17%

▼ 31 pts below state median · ▼ 29 pts below county median

Grade 434%

School 34% · District 20% · ▲ 14 pts above district

▼ 22 pts below state median · ▼ 23 pts below county median

Grade 528%

School 28% · District 23% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▼ 29 pts below state median · ▼ 28 pts below county median

Grade 646%

School 46% · District 26% · ▲ 20 pts above district

▼ 6 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 731%

School 31% · District 27% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Science

Grade 526%

School 26% · District 24% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 27 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

Grade 819%

School 19% · District 25% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 30 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

This schoolNew Haven School District, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.