The top reported proficiency rate is 29% in Math. The lowest is 26% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Da Vinci Schools K5
Da Vinci Schools K5 is a public charter elementary school on Jackson's south side, serving students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. It is part of the Da Vinci Schools charter district, an independent public school academy rather than a traditional district school. The school is small, with roughly a dozen to two dozen students per grade level, which means classes are intimate and children are known by name. The student body is predominantly white, with a sizable group of students identifying as two or more races, and small numbers of Black and Hispanic students. Nearly all students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, marking this as a school serving a high-poverty community. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not available in the sources we reviewed, so those figures are left out rather than estimated.
Jackson itself is a mid-sized industrial city and the county seat of Jackson County. Once an early automotive manufacturing hub where more than 20 car brands were built, the city has transitioned toward a blend of residential neighborhoods, downtown commercial life, and remaining manufacturing. Auto parts production still employs many skilled machine operators in the county. The largest employers include CMS Energy, Henry Ford Health, and Eaton Corporation. Downtown Jackson has a compact core with the Bright Walls mural project spread across several blocks, two historic Coney Island restaurants near the train station, the Michigan Theatre, and the Michigan Central Railroad Jackson Depot, the nation's oldest train station in continuous active use. The broader city is auto-oriented, built around the junction of I-94 and US-127 with several state highways converging downtown. Jackson has experienced a long-term population decline tied to industrial restructuring, though adaptive reuse projects like the Armory Arts Village and investment in public art point to ongoing reinvention.
The housing market around the school is affordable compared with both state and national benchmarks. Home values in the school's zip code run well below the Michigan median and far below the national median, and rents are similarly modest. That affordability shapes who lives here and who enrolls. For families already in the area, the cost of living is low. For families moving in, housing is unlikely to be a barrier.
On state assessments, Da Vinci Schools K5's results are mixed and generally below the midpoint among districts in Jackson County. In third-grade math and English language arts, roughly a third to two-fifths of students reached proficiency, which is modest but within range for a high-poverty school. Fourth-grade results in both subjects were lower, with fewer than a fifth of students proficient. Fifth-grade proficiency rates in math, English language arts, and social studies were suppressed to a range because of the small number of tested students, and the reported proficient counts were at or near zero, which reflects the challenges of measuring performance with very small cohorts. Fifth-grade science was the one bright spot, with a higher share of students reaching proficiency. Average scale scores were reported across all tested grades and subjects, giving some additional signal beyond the proficiency bands, but participation rates were missing from the data, so it is hard to know whether the tested students represent the full grade.
Because this is an elementary school, there is no graduation rate to report, and that absence is expected for the grade band rather than a gap. Chronic absenteeism data was also missing from the comparison set, so we cannot place the school's attendance patterns against its county peers. We looked for information on programs, staffing, discipline, and course access, but those fields were not provided in the available data. The district brief returned only general profile information and longstanding program descriptions, with no specific recent changes meeting the threshold for parent-relevant impact. A parent weighing this school against others in Jackson may want to ask the school directly about intervention supports, class size, enrichment offerings, and how it serves students reading below grade level.
What a family gets here is a small, community-rooted charter elementary in an affordable, working-class city with a real industrial past and visible downtown reinvestment. The academic results are below the county midpoint, with clear soft spots in the middle grades, and the tested cohorts are small enough that year-to-year results will move with just a few students. For families who value a small setting, a charter option, and proximity to downtown Jackson, this is a school worth visiting and asking pointed questions about academic support and growth.
See more original research from School Decision →