Vanderbilt Charter Academy, Holland MI

Original Research by School Decision on Vanderbilt Charter Academy

Vanderbilt Charter Academy is a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade charter school in Holland, Michigan, sitting on the city's near-west side along 16th Street. Holland itself is a mixed-use Lake Michigan community with a Dutch American cultural identity, a downtown listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and an economy built on office furniture manufacturing, automotive suppliers, food processing, tourism, and higher education. Publicly reported anchors include Herman Miller, Haworth, Adient, Johnson Controls, LG Chem, and Kraft Heinz, alongside Hope College and Western Theological Seminary. The downtown core centers on 8th Street, and the city has invested in a thermal snowmelt system that keeps sidewalks clear year-round, giving the commercial district a walkable feel that is unusual for a Michigan winter city. Lake Macatawa and the Lake Michigan shoreline, with Holland State Park and Tunnel Park, are a short drive from the school's address.

The school serves a predominantly Hispanic student body, with a substantial White enrollment and smaller Black, multiracial, Asian, and American Indian populations. A very large share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school among the higher-poverty settings in Ottawa County. The enrollment is moderate for a K-8 charter, with class sizes that look fairly even across the early grades and taper somewhat in the upper grades. Data on English learners and special education populations was not available, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about those services.

On Michigan's M-STEP assessments, the academic picture is mixed and varies sharply by grade and subject. English language arts is the school's relative strength. Third, fourth, and fifth graders show proficiency rates that are solidly above what many schools post, and seventh grade stands out as especially strong. The eighth-grade PSAT ELA result is more moderate but still above the midpoint. Math tells a different story. Third grade starts strong, but proficiency drops considerably in the upper elementary and middle grades, with fifth grade being the weakest. Seventh grade math recovers somewhat, and eighth grade on the PSAT lands in a middling range. Science and social studies proficiency is low across both tested grades, with fifth-grade social studies being the single weakest result in the entire profile. The school's overall proficiency index sits below the midpoint among the districts in Ottawa County, which is a relatively affluent county, so a parent weighing this school against neighboring traditional districts should ask how the school is responding to those middle-grade math and science gaps.

Because Vanderbilt serves only through eighth grade, there is no graduation rate to report, and that absence reflects the grade band rather than a missing outcome. Chronic absenteeism data was not available. No course access, staffing, discipline, or attendance figures were provided, so those dimensions of school climate are gaps a family would need to fill by visiting or calling. Program offerings were not in the data either, so we cannot speak to electives, extracurriculars, or intervention supports.

Holland's housing market is more expensive than the Michigan state benchmark and sits just below the national benchmark, with rents that have been climbing faster than home values in recent months. For a family considering enrollment, the cost of living near the school is a real factor, and the school's high-poverty profile exists within a community that is economically diverse rather than uniformly affluent.

What emerges is a charter school with genuine early-literacy strength, a student body that reflects Holland's Hispanic community, and clear academic soft spots in the middle grades, particularly in math, science, and social studies. A parent drawn to the school's community identity and early-grade ELA results would do well to ask directly about how instruction shifts as students move into fifth grade and beyond, since that is where the data shows the sharpest decline.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 363%

School 63% · District 63%

▲ 21 pts above state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Grade 449%

School 49% · District 49%

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 524%

School 24% · District 24%

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

Grade 632%

School 32% · District 32%

▲ 4 pts above state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 741%

School 41% · District 41%

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Grade 834%

School 34% · District 34%

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 369%

School 69% · District 69%

▲ 31 pts above state median · ▲ 13 pts above county median

Grade 461%

School 61% · District 61%

▲ 20 pts above state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Grade 569%

School 69% · District 69%

▲ 27 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 640%

School 40% · District 40%

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

Grade 779%

School 79% · District 79%

▲ 45 pts above state median · ▲ 25 pts above county median

Grade 851%

School 51% · District 51%

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

Science

Grade 536%

School 36% · District 36%

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

Grade 831%

School 31% · District 31%

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

Social studies

Grade 512%

School 12% · District 12%

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 32 pts below county median

Grade 831%

School 31% · District 31%

▼ 12 pts below state median · ▼ 33 pts below county median

This schoolVanderbilt Charter Academy, 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.