Harrison Park Academy, Grand Rapids MI

Original Research by School Decision on Harrison Park Academy

Harrison Park Academy sits on Davis Avenue NW in Grand Rapids, serving pre-kindergarten through eighth grade as a regular public school within Grand Rapids Public Schools. The school's enrollment is mid-sized for its grade band, with students fairly evenly distributed across the elementary and middle grades. The student body is predominantly Hispanic, with a substantial Black population and smaller shares of white students and students identifying as two or more races. Nearly all students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places this school among the highest-poverty settings in the district. The school is not a charter or magnet, so families enroll through the standard district process. Data on individualized education program rates and English learner counts were not available, so those population details are left out here rather than estimated.

On Michigan's M-STEP and PSAT assessments for the most recent reported year, Harrison Park's proficiency results are low across every tested grade and subject. In math, the share of students scoring proficient or above sits in the single digits to low teens from third grade through eighth, with the weakest results in the middle grades. English language arts follows a similar pattern, though eighth grade stands apart as the one bright spot, where proficiency on the PSAT reaches a noticeably higher level than the other grades. Science and social studies results are also low at both the fifth and eighth grade testing points. When the school's overall proficiency is compared to other districts across Kent County, it falls in the bottom quartile. These results are a fact of the current data, 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 building is working to move students toward grade-level mastery. The data sections on this page carry the specific figures for each grade and subject.

Because Harrison Park does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and no chronic absenteeism figure was available in the data provided. The school also lacks reported participation rates for state testing, so it is not possible to characterize how completely the student body was assessed. Multi-year trend data was not available either, which means there is no way to describe whether proficiency is improving, holding, or declining over time at this building.

Grand Rapids is Michigan's second-largest city and the economic anchor of West Michigan. The publicly reported identity blends a furniture-manufacturing heritage with a diversified modern economy built on healthcare, retail, and education. The Grand River runs through downtown, and the city's core is walkable, with museums, arenas, breweries, and event venues concentrated near the riverfront. Beyond downtown, neighborhoods become more car-dependent. Major employers include Corewell Health, Meijer, and Steelcase, and the Medical Mile corridor has drawn substantial investment in health-sciences facilities. The city hosts ArtPrize annually and carries the Beer City USA label for its craft brewing scene. The broader metropolitan area is sizable and growing modestly. For a family considering Harrison Park, the surrounding neighborhood context is an urban Grand Rapids setting with access to the city's cultural and civic amenities, though the school's immediate vicinity is more residential than the downtown core.

Housing in the school's zip code is modestly priced relative to Kent County and the state as a whole. Home values and rents both sit below the county median listing price and below the state benchmark, and estimated monthly mortgage costs run higher than local rents, which makes renting a relatively more affordable option in this area. County-level market activity shows a healthy supply of active listings with moderate demand, and homes are selling at a steady pace. The housing market is not a barrier to accessing the neighborhood, though affordability for families depends heavily on income, and this school serves a community where nearly all students come from economically disadvantaged households.

Grand Rapids Public Schools has publicly reported a 2022 through 2027 Strategic Plan built on community feedback, with the district citing prior gains in graduation rates, reduced chronic absenteeism, and improved test scores under an earlier Transformation Plan. The current plan organizes work around six prioritized outcomes and six themes. What this means concretely for Harrison Park Academy is not detailed in the available data, so a parent would need to ask the school directly how these district priorities are translating into classroom-level changes at this building.

The picture that emerges is of an urban, high-poverty elementary and middle school in a city with strong economic and cultural momentum, where current academic outcomes are weak and the gap to county peers is wide. A family weighing this school should ask pointed questions about what academic supports, tutoring, extended learning time, or interventions the building offers, how the district's strategic plan is being implemented here, and what the school's own improvement goals look like.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 314%

School 14% · District 20% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 28 pts below state median · ▼ 36 pts below county median

Grade 48%

School 8% · District 17% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 30 pts below state median · ▼ 39 pts below county median

Grade 59%

School 9% · District 13% · ▼ 4 pts below district

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

Grade 74%

School 4% · District 18% · ▼ 14 pts below district

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

Grade 85%

School 5% · District 15% · ▼ 11 pts below district

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

English language arts

Grade 38%

School 8% · District 20% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 30 pts below state median · ▼ 41 pts below county median

Grade 415%

School 15% · District 23% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▼ 26 pts below state median · ▼ 34 pts below county median

Grade 510%

School 10% · District 24% · ▼ 14 pts below district

▼ 32 pts below state median · ▼ 39 pts below county median

Grade 79%

School 9% · District 24% · ▼ 15 pts below district

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

Grade 827%

School 27% · District 46% · ▼ 18 pts below district

▼ 35 pts below state median · ▼ 39 pts below county median

Science

Grade 59%

School 9% · District 21% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 31 pts below state median · ▼ 41 pts below county median

Grade 88%

School 8% · District 25% · ▼ 17 pts below district

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

Social studies

Grade 57%

School 7% · District 14% · ▼ 7 pts below district

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

Grade 88%

School 8% · District 28% · ▼ 20 pts below district

▼ 35 pts below state median · ▼ 38 pts below county median

This schoolGrand Rapids Public Schools, 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 4Lower-income11%Higher-income36%26 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income11%Higher-income33%22 pp gap