The reported proficiency rate for English language arts is 23%.
Original Research by School Decision on Oak Park Service Learning Academy Opsla
Oak Park Service Learning Academy, known as OPSLA, is a charter school on Marlow Street in Oak Park, Michigan, serving students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. It operates under the Detroit Service Learning Academy, a charter district, and sits within Oakland County. The school is small for its grade band, with enrollment spread fairly evenly across the elementary and middle grades. Its student body is entirely Black, and nearly every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the economic profile of the surrounding community. The school does not report figures for English learners or students with individualized education programs, so those populations, if present, are not visible in the available data.
On state assessments, OPSLA's results are low across most subjects and grades. In math, proficiency rates fall in the lowest reporting band for every tested grade from third through eighth, with no grade reaching even the lower end of the state's proficiency threshold in meaningful numbers. English language arts shows somewhat more variation. Third, sixth, and seventh grades each have proficiency in the teens, while eighth grade stands out with half of tested students reaching proficiency, though that group is small and a single cohort's result can swing widely at that size. Science and social studies results, available for fifth and eighth grades, also land in the lowest reporting band. Average scale scores are reported across all grades and subjects, giving some picture of where students sit on the state's metric, but the proficiency picture is the more direct read. When positioned relative to districts in Oakland County, OPSLA's overall proficiency index sits below the midpoint, and well below the county median. This is a school where academic outcomes, as measured by state tests, are a soft spot, and a parent may want to look into this further with the school, asking what instructional supports and interventions are in place and how the school plans to move results over time.
Because OPSLA does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report. Chronic absenteeism data was not available. Discipline, course access, staffing, and attendance information were not reported either, so those dimensions of school life cannot be described here. Program offerings were not provided in the available data.
Oak Park itself is an inner-ring suburb of Detroit, dense and built out in the postwar era on a grid of mile roads. It is bordered by Eight Mile Road to the south and Eleven Mile to the north, with the Reuther Freeway running along its northern edge. The city describes itself as business-minded and family-centered, and its commercial base includes a FedEx distribution center on a large former armory site and the headquarters of WeatherGard, a window manufacturer that relocated from Detroit. Annual events like Summerfest, Winterfest, and an Independence Day parade bring periodic street life. Public amenities include a community center, library, municipal pool, ice arena, and sports fields, with Shepherd Park serving as a central recreational anchor. The Detroit Zoo sits just across the freeway in Huntington Woods and Royal Oak.
The city's population has edged downward slightly since the 2020 census, following a history of explosive mid-century growth. Housing in the school's zip code is modest relative to both state and national benchmarks, with typical home values sitting below the Michigan statewide figure and well below the national one. Rents are correspondingly affordable, and mortgage rates remain in the mid-six range, which shapes what ownership looks like for families in the area. The unemployment rate sits in the low single digits.
For a parent weighing OPSLA, the core tradeoff is clear. The school offers a charter option in a community where nearly all students come from low-income households, and the academic results on state tests are low across subjects and grade bands, with one bright spot in eighth-grade ELA. The surrounding area is dense, amenity-rich for an inner-ring suburb, and relatively affordable, but the school's measured outcomes trail most of its Oakland County peers. What the available data does not speak to is classroom culture, teacher relationships, extracurricular life, or the service-learning approach the school's name implies, since program details were not reported. Those are questions worth bringing directly to the school.
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