Honey Creek Community School, Ann Arbor MI

Original Research by School Decision on Honey Creek Community School

Honey Creek Community School is a public charter school serving kindergarten through eighth grade on Ann Arbor's west side. It operates as its own district, a single-school charter with no separate governing district above it. The enrollment is small for a K-through-eight school, with roughly even grade-level cohorts, and the student body is predominantly white with smaller shares of multiracial, Hispanic, Asian, and Black students. A modest proportion of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, well below what many public schools in the county serve. Data on special education and English learner populations was not reported, so those counts are not available here.

On state assessments, Honey Creek's results sit above the midpoint among districts in Washtenaw County for overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades. The school's strongest showing is in English language arts, where proficiency climbs steadily from the early grades into the middle grades. By seventh grade, a large majority of tested students are proficient, and eighth-grade ELA results on the PSAT land in a very high reported range. Science and social studies follow a similar arc, with fifth-grade proficiency middling but eighth-grade results reaching a higher level. Math is the softer area. Third and fourth grades land around the midpoint, fifth grade dips, and results recover somewhat in sixth and seventh before settling near the middle again in eighth. A parent weighing this school may want to look into the math progression further, particularly around the upper elementary grades where the dip is most visible.

Because Honey Creek does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report. That is expected for a K-through-eight school, not a gap in performance. Chronic absenteeism and discipline data were not available in the provided records.

The school sits in a community where housing costs run well above both the state and national benchmarks. Typical home values in the surrounding zip code are roughly double the state figure, and rents are correspondingly elevated. That places Honey Creek in one of the more expensive residential markets in Michigan. Ann Arbor itself is a university town shaped heavily by the University of Michigan, with a walkable downtown that blends into campus, a high-tech economy drawing startups and offices for major employers, and civic life anchored by the county courthouse and the university. The city is growing, though the pace and direction of that growth is a subject of local political debate. Parks and the Nichols Arboretum provide green space, and buses connect the campus corridor with the central business district.

As a charter school, Honey Creek offers an alternative to the surrounding traditional public districts, and its small size means students stay in a consistent environment from kindergarten through middle school. The district brief turned up no recent referendums, property-tax shifts, or curriculum overhauls, which is consistent with a single-school charter operation. Program offerings beyond what the assessment data implies were not available in the provided material, so a parent interested in extracurriculars, arts, or specialized instruction would need to ask the school directly.

The academic read here is a school with real strength in literacy and a trajectory that tends to improve as students move through the grades, set against math results that are more mixed. The peer environment is small and relatively advantaged, and the housing market surrounding it is expensive. For a family already in or near Ann Arbor looking for a smaller, continuous K-through-eight charter option, Honey Creek presents a coherent pathway, particularly if English language arts and the upper-grade science and social studies results align with what a family is seeking.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 352%

School 52% · District 52%

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

Grade 452%

School 52% · District 52%

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

Grade 531%

School 31% · District 31%

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

Grade 642%

School 42% · District 42%

▲ 14 pts above state median · even with county median

Grade 755%

School 55% · District 55%

▲ 27 pts above state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 850%

School 50% · District 50%

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 356%

School 56% · District 56%

▲ 18 pts above state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

Grade 459%

School 59% · District 59%

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

Grade 548%

School 48% · District 48%

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

Grade 671%

School 71% · District 71%

▲ 37 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

Grade 776%

School 76% · District 76%

▲ 42 pts above state median · ▲ 24 pts above county median

Science

Grade 552%

School 52% · District 52%

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

Grade 872%

School 72% · District 72%

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

Social studies

Grade 543%

School 43% · District 43%

▲ 15 pts above state median · even with county median

Grade 872%

School 72% · District 72%

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

This schoolHoney Creek Community School, 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.