The top reported proficiency rate is 43% in English language arts. The lowest is 21% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Soar Academic Institute
SOAR Academic Institute is an alternative public school serving grades six through twelve in Redford, Michigan, within the South Redford School District. The school is designed for students who need more flexibility than a traditional classroom schedule allows. According to publicly reported district materials, SOAR blends online learning with personal support, giving students a pathway that differs from the standard comprehensive middle and high school experience. The district describes it as part of a broader set of specialized academic pathways it has built for grades six through twelve, alongside the Eagle Scholars honors program.
The enrollment tells a clear story about who attends. The school is small overall, and the student body is concentrated heavily in the upper grades, with the largest groups in eleventh and twelfth grade. Very few students are enrolled in the middle school grades. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The school's racial composition is predominantly Black, with a smaller white population and small Hispanic and multiracial representation. Data on English learners and special education populations was not available.
State assessment results are limited, and the gaps are tied to the school's structure. No students were tested in sixth or seventh grade, so those results are suppressed. For eighth grade, a small group of students was tested across math, English language arts, science, and social studies. English language arts was the strongest area, with a meaningful share of tested students reaching proficiency. Social studies saw a smaller portion proficient. Math and science proficiency were very low, with no tested students reaching the proficient threshold in either subject. These results should be read in context: the number of tested students is small, and as an alternative school serving students who often arrive behind on credits or have had disrupted schooling, the scores reflect where students are when they arrive rather than the full picture of what the school helps them accomplish. The school's overall proficiency index sits above the midpoint among districts in Wayne County, which is a broad comparison set spanning a large, diverse county. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, asking specifically how SOAR measures student growth and progress toward graduation, since proficiency snapshots capture only a fraction of what an alternative program does.
Graduation rate data was not available for SOAR. Chronic absenteeism data was also missing. For an alternative school, these gaps are common and often reflect the nature of the setting rather than a lack of transparency. Still, graduation outcomes are central to what a family considering this school would want to understand, so asking the school directly about completion rates and post-graduation plans would be worthwhile.
Redford Township is an inner-ring suburb of Detroit, primarily residential with commercial corridors along major roads. There is no traditional downtown or walkable main street. Civic life centers on the town hall complex on West Six Mile Road, the Redford Township District Library, and the Redford Marquee, an open-air market and amphitheater built from the old library building. The township has more than a dozen parks, including Lola Valley Park and Bell Creek Park. Major roadways like I-96, Telegraph Road, and Grand River Avenue provide regional access, and the township sits within the SMART bus service area. The community is car-dependent, with postwar single-family homes defining much of the built environment. Redford's population has declined over recent decades and then partially rebounded, and the township has undergone substantial demographic change, becoming more racially diverse. Housing in the school's zip code is modest relative to state and national benchmarks, with home values well below the state average and rents that are affordable by most measures.
For a family evaluating SOAR, the central question is fit. This is a school built for students who need something other than the traditional path, and the district frames it explicitly that way. The academic data is thin and mixed, but that is characteristic of alternative settings. What matters most here is the conversation a family has with the school about how it supports students toward completion and what flexibility it offers, and those are answers the data alone cannot provide.
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