The top reported proficiency rate is 51% in Social studies. The lowest is 10% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Constellation Schools: Old Brooklyn Community Middle
Constellation Schools: Old Brooklyn Community Middle is a publicly chartered middle school serving grades five through eight in Cleveland's Old Brooklyn neighborhood. The school operates as part of the Constellation Schools network, which is managed by ACCEL Schools, a for-profit charter organization. This operational structure brings longer instructional time and a unified curriculum platform called AMP/edu, which standardizes teaching methods and resources across the network's campuses.
The school enrolls a diverse student body drawn primarily from the Old Brooklyn and adjacent neighborhoods. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the enrollment is split between white, Hispanic, and Black students, with smaller numbers of Asian and multiracial students. The school is small by middle school standards, with roughly similar counts across each grade level from fifth to eighth.
Academic proficiency is low across all tested subjects. On Ohio's State Tests, proficiency in English language arts sits in single digits on the overall school index when compared to other public schools in Cuyahoga County, placing the school in the bottom quartile among county schools tested in similar grades. Math proficiency is even lower, also in single digits. Science proficiency is similarly low. An older result from social studies, from several years back, showed a rate closer to the midpoint, but current data do not track social studies statewide in the same way. The school does not report graduation rates because it does not serve high school grades. State testing participation is strong; nearly complete enrollment took the assessments in reading and almost all in science, signaling the school is administering tests rather than having participation problems.
Old Brooklyn is a quiet, primarily residential Cleveland neighborhood that sits southwest of Downtown and west of the Cuyahoga River. Housing values are modest and stable, well below the state median. The neighborhood has older residential stock and neighborhood-scale commercial strips but lacks the dense walkable street life of trendier inner-ring areas like Ohio City or Tremont. The broader Cleveland economy has shifted toward healthcare, finance and education, though manufacturing and industrial heritage remain visible in the landscape.
Because Constellation Schools: Old Brooklyn Community Middle is a charter school operating under a for-profit management company, it sits outside the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. A parent weighing this school against Cleveland public options should understand that the school's instructional model, staffing, curriculum, and decision-making operate under ACCEL Schools' network approach rather than the district's. The AMP/edu platform is a lasting structural choice affecting daily classroom instruction. The low proficiency results indicate that students are not meeting grade-level standards in core academic areas at rates typical for public schools in the region. A parent may want to look into further what interventions or instructional approaches the school is using to address this gap, and what the school's trajectory has been if prior-year data become available.
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