The reported proficiency rate for English language arts is 95%.
Original Research by School Decision on Deborah Brown Community School
Deborah Brown Community School is a small public charter school in Tulsa serving children from prekindergarten through third grade. Because the school ends at third grade, most of the metrics used for older schools—graduation rate, college readiness, high school course access—simply do not apply. A parent considering this school is looking at an early-elementary environment only; students must transfer elsewhere for fourth grade onward. The school operates under its own charter district, Deborah Brown Charter, which showed no recent major changes in publicly available records.
The student body is predominantly African American, with a smaller but meaningful share of students who identify as two or more races. Other racial groups make up a very small fraction of enrollment. The school is small overall, with enrollment spread across prekindergarten through third grade in roughly even class sizes, except for third grade which has fewer students. Data on economic disadvantage, special education, and English learner status were not available in the public data provided, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about its support structures for those populations.
State testing results are limited. Only third graders take the state assessments at this school, and only twenty students were tested. Math proficiency data was suppressed—the state does not publish results for groups that small—so there is no public information on how those students performed in math. In English language arts, the same group of twenty students posted a very high proficiency rate, an impressive figure on its face. However, with a tested group that small, a single year’s result can swing sharply and may not be representative of the school’s broader instructional quality. When viewed relative to other districts across Tulsa County, this school’s overall proficiency index (which here is essentially just the ELA result) places it in the top quarter of all districts in the county. That comparison is useful but must be weighed against the narrow data that produced it.
The school’s location in Tulsa puts it in a city with a diversified economy—aviation, finance, technology, energy—and a wide range of housing costs. Home values in the immediate zip code are moderately above the statewide typical level but below the national typical level, reflecting Tulsa’s position as a major regional hub that remains more affordable than many large metros. The city has seen steady population growth and has a well-established civic and cultural infrastructure.
With no data on discipline, staffing ratios, chronic absenteeism, or program offerings, a parent’s next step would be to visit the school, talk to the principal about math instruction given the suppression, and ask about how the school prepares young children for the transition to fourth grade elsewhere. The school’s strong ELA showing at third grade is a clear positive, but the thinness of the public record means much of the real picture will come from direct engagement. For a family seeking a small, early-elementary charter option in Tulsa with a predominantly African American peer group and a literacy-focused academic start, Deborah Brown Community School is worth exploring with those specific questions in hand.
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