The top reported proficiency rate is 56% in Science. The lowest is 28% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Leap Academy at North Fairmount
Leap Academy at North Fairmount is a small public school serving prekindergarten through sixth grade in Cincinnati's North Fairmount neighborhood. It sits in a lower-income area where a substantial majority of families are navigating economic pressure; the school's enrollment is about two-thirds Black and roughly a third Hispanic. The school itself is sized for its grade band, with students distributed fairly evenly across the early grades and a narrower sixth-grade cohort.
State testing data from the most recent school year shows the school is facing real academic headwinds. In English Language Arts and math for grades three through six, proficiency rates fall below what Cincinnati Public Schools and Hamilton County schools typically report. Science proficiency, tested on a smaller subset of students, is stronger. These results place the school in the bottom quartile relative to other school buildings across Hamilton County when overall proficiency is measured. This is the kind of gap a parent may want to look into directly with the school—understanding what the school is doing to address it, what classroom supports exist, and how the school tracks and talks about improvement matter as much as the numbers themselves.
Cincinnati Public Schools has made a deliberate shift in how reading is taught across the district, adopting a structured, science-of-reading approach called Wit and Wisdom paired with Wilson's Fundations for foundational skills in the early grades. Third-grade reading proficiency across the district showed a meaningful gain from the prior year. This curriculum work is district-wide, so Leap Academy's teachers have been trained in these methods. At the same time, the district cut roughly four dozen classroom positions to balance its budget in 2025, a reduction that affects school-level staffing citywide.
The neighborhood itself is mixed in character. Cincinnati is a city defined by its neighborhoods, and North Fairmount sits north of downtown, part of a historically working-class residential area. Housing in the broader zip code is affordable relative to national standards. The city is investing in downtown and fast-growing suburbs; growth in the residential neighborhoods farther from downtown is slower. Public transit includes Metro bus service connecting to downtown and other neighborhoods, and a free streetcar that runs between downtown, Over-the-Rhine, and The Banks riverfront entertainment district. Parks like Eden Park with its museums and conservatory are a short drive, and the Cincinnati Public Library operates a branch-library system that is among the largest in the country.
The school itself serves an early elementary population, so state testing covers only grades three through six. Prekindergarten and kindergarten students are not tested, which is typical. The school does not report free-or-reduced-price lunch numbers or detailed special education or English learner data, so the full picture of student need and service availability is not visible in the available data. A parent considering this school would benefit from asking directly about intervention programs, class sizes, the school's use of the new district curriculum, and how the school is working to lift proficiency, particularly in math.
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