Original Research by School Decision on Charlevoix Academy
Charlevoix Academy was a charter public school in Charlevoix, Michigan, that is no longer operating. Its board of education voted to cancel its contract with Saginaw Valley State University, and the school closed at the end of the 2022-23 academic year. Publicly reported accounts indicate enrollment had declined over several years, falling to a small cohort by its final year. Families who had enrolled there no longer have this public charter option and must look to neighboring districts or other schools.
Because the school is closed, the practical question for a parent is not whether to enroll but what this school was and what the closure means for the community's school landscape. Charlevoix Academy served a broad grade range, from prekindergarten through twelfth grade, which is unusual for a charter school of its size. Operating as a single small school across that many grades likely gave it a tight-knit, family-like character, but it also meant the school had to stretch limited staffing and resources across elementary, middle, and high school instruction simultaneously.
State assessment data from the 2022-23 school year is available in the record but is suppressed across every subject and grade level. The tested-student count for each grade was zero, which reflects the very small enrollment by the time testing occurred. This means there is no usable proficiency picture from the final year. No multi-year trend data was available either. A parent looking for academic results would find nothing to evaluate here, and that absence is explained by the school's enrollment collapse in its final year rather than by any academic performance judgment.
Enrollment and demographic details are also missing from the data. We do not have figures for the school's racial or ethnic composition, free or reduced-price lunch eligibility, special education rates, or English learner counts. The school did not report a graduation rate separately, which is consistent with a small charter where graduating classes were tiny if they existed at all. No civil-rights, discipline, course-access, or staffing data was provided.
The school sat at 115 West Hurlbut Street in Charlevoix, a small lakeside city that serves as the county seat of Charlevoix County. Charlevoix sits on a narrow isthmus between Lake Michigan and Lake Charlevoix, with the Pine River channel running through downtown. The city functions as both a residential community and a seasonal tourism hub, with a compact downtown along Main Street and Bridge Street, marinas and harbor activity on Round Lake, and festivals like the Venetian Festival and Apple Fest that draw large crowds in warmer months. The resident base skews older, and the local economy is oriented toward healthcare, government, education, and seasonal hospitality rather than heavy industry. Charlevoix Public Schools, the traditional public district, operates a campus on the southeast side of the city separate from the downtown waterfront.
The housing market in the school's zip code sits well above both the Michigan and national benchmarks for typical home values, reflecting the desirability of lakefront property in northern Michigan. Values have been appreciating steadily. Rent data was not available. For families still in the area, this means the housing cost profile is relatively high compared with much of the state.
With Charlevoix Academy closed, the remaining public option in the city is Charlevoix Public Schools, and families seeking charter alternatives would need to look elsewhere in the region. The closure removed a small-school choice that some families may have valued for its combined-grade intimacy. Whether that gap gets filled depends on whether another charter authorizer or operator sees enough demand in the Charlevoix area, and the enrollment trajectory that led to the closure suggests that demand was already thin.
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