The reported proficiency rate for Science is 58%.
Original Research by School Decision on Crestwood Accelerated Program
Crestwood Accelerated Program sits in Dearborn Heights, an inner-ring suburb of Detroit about a dozen miles west of downtown. The city is a bedroom community, car-dependent, with commercial strips along major roads and no traditional walkable downtown. Housing here is relatively affordable compared with state and national benchmarks, and the market shows modest price growth with homes selling in a reasonable timeframe. The population has been declining slightly in recent years. Dearborn Heights is split among five school districts, and Crestwood School District is one of them.
The school's name tells you something about what it is. Crestwood Accelerated Program is a regular public school within the district, serving kindergarten through fourth grade, but its current enrollment tells a different story. Every enrolled student sits in fourth grade. The total enrollment is very small for a school, just a single classroom's worth of children. This is not a typical elementary school with full grade bands. It appears to function as a specialized, accelerated placement for students who have moved ahead of their age-level peers, consolidated into one grade. A parent considering this option should ask the district directly how students are selected and what the pathway looks like after fourth grade, because the data does not explain the admissions process or the transition to middle school.
The student body is predominantly white, with a small number of Black students and one student identified as two or more races. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The school does not report data for English learners or students with individualized education programs, so we cannot characterize those populations. Title I status was not reported.
On state assessments, the results are strong. Third-grade proficiency in both math and English language arts falls in a range that begins at the midpoint and extends to full proficiency, meaning at least half of tested students were proficient. Fourth-grade results are even stronger, landing in a range that starts at roughly four-fifths proficient and goes up from there. Average scale scores are solid across both subjects and grades. Science was last tested several years ago, and a majority of fourth-graders were proficient at that time. When the school is measured against other districts in Wayne County on overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades, it lands in the top quartile. This is a high-performing program by the measure the state uses.
There are important limits to what the data can tell you. Because the school serves only early elementary grades, there is no graduation rate, and that gap is expected for a school that does not extend into high school. Chronic absenteeism data was not available. Participation rates were not reported for the most recent testing cycle. No program offerings, course access, staffing levels, discipline data, or attendance figures were provided. Trend data across multiple years was not available, so we cannot say whether performance is improving or declining. The tested cohorts are also very small, which means a single student's results shift the picture considerably. A parent may want to ask the school how stable these results have been over time and what supports exist for students who enter the program and need to catch up.
Dearborn Heights itself offers a suburban setting with affordable housing, two public libraries, and access to Metro Detroit amenities. The broader area, including nearby Dearborn and its major employers, provides employment for residents who commute. The city has been losing population, and no major new housing developments were identified. For a family, the trade-off here is clear: a strong academic program in a small, accelerated setting, within a modest-cost, car-dependent community that is quiet but not growing. Whether that fits depends on whether a parent wants a compact, high-performing placement for a child who is ready to move ahead, and how comfortable they are with a school this small and a community this settled.
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