Detroit Innovation Academy, Detroit MI

Original Research by School Decision on Detroit Innovation Academy

Detroit Innovation Academy is a charter school serving kindergarten through eighth grade on Plymouth Road in west Detroit, in the 48228 zip code. It is a small school by enrollment, with a fairly even distribution of students across the nine grade levels it serves. The student body is almost entirely Black, with a small number of Hispanic students and a handful identified as two or more races. Nearly every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which places this school among the highest-poverty campuses in the area. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report, and that absence reflects the grade band rather than any gap in the data.

On state assessments, the picture is mixed but leans challenging. English language arts is the relative bright spot. Proficiency rises as students move up through the grades, with seventh and eighth graders reaching levels that suggest a meaningful share of older students are reading and writing at or above grade level. The middle grades here show stronger ELA results than the elementary grades, which hover at the lower end. Math is the tougher subject across the board. Proficiency is quite low in every tested grade from third through eighth, with several grades showing very few students reaching the proficient threshold. Science and social studies results fall in between, with eighth grade performing better than fifth grade in both subjects. When placed against districts in Wayne County, the school's overall proficiency sits below the midpoint, which is a finding a parent may want to discuss directly with school leadership to understand what interventions and supports are in place.

We looked for data on chronic absenteeism, discipline, course access, staffing ratios, special education enrollment, and English learner services. None of these fields were available in the data provided. Their absence means we cannot characterize the school's climate, student support services, or staffing from the evidence at hand. A family considering this school would benefit from asking about these areas during a visit or enrollment conversation.

The surrounding community is one of the most affordable housing markets in the region. Home values in this zip code are far below both the state and national benchmarks, and rents are modest as well. This is a working-class, predominantly residential stretch of west Detroit along the Plymouth Road corridor. The broader city context matters here. Detroit is a major urban center undergoing active revitalization, with publicly reported investment in downtown, Midtown, Corktown, and the riverfront. The city has seen two consecutive years of population growth as of recent Census estimates, reversing a long decline, with new housing development and immigration contributing to the turnaround. Major employers in the metro area include the Big Three automakers, Henry Ford Health, the Detroit Medical Center, and Rocket Mortgage. The civic infrastructure includes the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Detroit Public Library, Belle Isle, and the Riverwalk, all of which are reachable from the school's west-side location though not walkable from it. Walkability in this part of Detroit is limited, and most families would rely on a car.

No program offerings were listed in the data, so we cannot describe extracurriculars, arts, athletics, or specialized academic pathways. The district brief searched for parent-relevant changes and found none on record.

What the assembled evidence describes is a small, high-poverty charter school serving a nearly entirely Black student body in west Detroit, with emerging strength in middle-grade English language arts and persistent difficulty in math across all tested grades. Families drawn to a small, community-rooted K-through-eight charter environment may find the upper-grade literacy gains worth exploring further, while the math results and the missing climate data are questions worth bringing directly to the school.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 315%

School 15% · District 15%

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

Grade 59%

School 9% · District 9%

▼ 23 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Grade 68%

School 8% · District 8%

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Grade 710%

School 10% · District 10%

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 315%

School 15% · District 15%

▼ 23 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Grade 417%

School 17% · District 17%

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

Grade 517%

School 17% · District 17%

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

Grade 621%

School 21% · District 21%

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

Grade 740%

School 40% · District 40%

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

Grade 833%

School 33% · District 33%

▼ 29 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Science

Grade 511%

School 11% · District 11%

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

Grade 825%

School 25% · District 25%

▼ 12 pts below state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 825%

School 25% · District 25%

▼ 18 pts below state median · even with county median

This schoolDetroit Innovation 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.