The top reported proficiency rate is 2% in Math. The lowest is 0% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Natividad Pagan International Newcomers Academy
Natividad Pagan International Newcomers Academy is a pre-K through 12 public school in Cleveland that serves students across all grade bands in a single building on West 46th Street. The school is named for a purpose: it enrolls newcomers, which means students arriving in the United States with limited English proficiency and often arriving mid-year or partway through their school careers. This is the environment and the mission.
The student body reflects that purpose. The enrollment is split across multiple racial and ethnic groups, with the largest share Hispanic, followed by roughly equal shares of Black and white students, and a meaningful Asian enrollment. The racial composition differs sharply from typical U.S. schools because these are students with recent arrival backgrounds. Grade distribution spans the full K-12 band, with heavier concentration in elementary grades but a substantial high school cohort. An exact enrollment count and details on the share of English learners are not available in the data provided, but the school's identity as a newcomers academy means the vast majority of students are learning English as an additional language, often arriving with interrupted schooling or no formal education from their countries of origin.
Academic performance on state testing shows severe challenges. Among students tested in grades 3 through 8 in 2024-25, the proficiency rate in math was extremely low and in English language arts was zero, meaning no students scored at proficiency levels 3 through 5. Science proficiency, tested in a smaller sample, was also zero. These are the plainest numbers in the data: a school in which tested students are not meeting state proficiency benchmarks at meaningful rates. This is not uncommon in schools serving newly arrived students with interrupted education, limited English proficiency, and compressed time to build both academic content knowledge and English language skills. But it is a reality a parent should understand before enrollment, and something to discuss directly with the school about how it approaches the gap between entry level and proficiency, what the trajectory typically looks like for students over multiple years, and whether the school has data on cohorts as they progress through the system.
Positioned against the districts in Cuyahoga County, the school's overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile, a positioning that reflects the high-needs newcomer population it deliberately serves. Graduation rate and chronic absenteeism data were not available, so those measures do not appear in this picture.
The school sits within Cleveland Municipal School District, a large urban district that has undergone significant change in recent years. The district passed a major operating levy in November 2024 that increases property taxes on homeowners. More relevant for school assignment: in December 2025, the district approved a consolidation plan that will reduce the number of schools district-wide from 88 to 59 by the 2026-27 school year, consolidating elementary and high schools and reassigning roughly twelve thousand students. Families should confirm whether Natividad Pagan is part of that consolidation plan, which schools it may merge with, and whether the school's location and mission remain stable. The district also implemented a cellphone-free policy for students and rolled out PowerSchool, an online grade book giving parents direct access to student grades, which affects daily classroom life and communication across all Cleveland schools.
Cleveland itself is a large mixed-use city on Lake Erie with downtown and neighborhood commercial centers, a strong arts and healthcare-anchored economy, and recent population growth concentrated in the urban core. Housing values in the school's West 46th Street zip code are modest relative to national benchmarks and have declined slightly year-over-year. Rental costs are moderate and rising. The city's transportation network includes heavy rail and light rail lines and a bus system; transit access shapes where families can reasonably live and work in relation to school.
A parent considering this school should understand it as a specialized pathway designed for students navigating arrival in the United States with limited prior English instruction. The academic data shows that students in this school are far below state proficiency benchmarks; the school's job is to accelerate them toward grade-level work while teaching English. This is a different set of expectations and outcomes than a traditional school, and the fit depends on whether your student is a newcomer for whom this mission matches, and whether you are prepared for a lower proficiency picture in the near term while the student builds language and academic skills. Direct conversation with the school about student progress over time, retention, and the path from entry to proficiency would be essential.
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