The top reported proficiency rate is 22% in English language arts. The lowest is 13% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Academy for Integrated Arts
The Academy for Integrated Arts is a charter school in Kansas City that serves preschool through sixth grade. Its mission is embedded in its name: the school integrates arts across its curriculum, offering an approach that families drawn to arts-rich education may find compelling. Because it serves elementary and early middle grades only, there is no graduation rate to report.
The school is located on Troost Avenue in Kansas City, a major urban center. Kansas City is a sprawling, car-dependent city with concentrated walkable cores downtown, in the River Market, and along the Country Club Plaza. The school sits in a neighborhood where the housing market reflects the broader Kansas City area: home values and rents have seen modest recent increases, consistent with the metro region.
Academy for Integrated Arts is a regular public school that operates as a charter, giving it some autonomy from the local school district in exchange for accountability under its charter. Every student at the school qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating a student population that is overwhelmingly from low-income households. The student body is majority Black, with smaller shares of white, Hispanic, multiracial, and American Indian or Alaska Native students.
On state assessments, the Academy for Integrated Arts posted proficiency rates that are below the midpoint among districts in Jackson County. In third-grade math, roughly one in every fifteen students scored proficient or above. In fourth-grade math, the rate was higher, with about one in every six students meeting that bar. Fifth-grade math results were similar, with roughly one in seven students scoring proficient. Sixth-grade math results were suppressed, meaning the tested group was too small to report publicly without privacy concerns.
In English language arts, the picture was somewhat stronger. In third grade, about one in every five students scored proficient or above on the state MAP assessment. Fourth-grade proficiency was similar, with roughly one in every four students meeting the bar. Fifth-grade results matched that level. Sixth-grade results were again suppressed due to small group size. Science results for fifth grade were also suppressed.
A parent looking at these results should know the school serves a student population that faces significant economic challenges, which is associated with lower test scores across many schools. Still, the proficiency rates are notably low in both math and ELA, and a family considering this school may want to investigate what academic support programs are in place and how the school measures progress beyond the state tests. The data does not include information on staffing, discipline, or course access, so it is difficult to assess those aspects of the school environment.
The district itself, which is a single-school district, did not have any recent changes reported that would be of lasting interest to parents. No new initiatives, leadership changes, or program additions were found.
For a family prioritizing an arts-integrated curriculum and a small school environment within Kansas City, the Academy for Integrated Arts offers a clear identity. The academic results and the fact that every student comes from a low-income household point to a school that is likely stretched in terms of resources, but the arts focus provides a distinctive pathway that some families may value more than conventional test-score metrics.
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