Recent data from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce reveals that the I Promise School in Akron, founded in partnership with the LeBron James Family Foundation, continues to face challenges with student proficiency on state tests. Despite low scores, the school received high marks for student academic growth, indicating that its students are improving at a faster rate than their peers across the state.
Key Takeaways
- Only two of 75 seventh-grade students at the I Promise School passed their state mathematics test in the 2024-25 school year.
- The school earned a 4-star rating for Progress, suggesting it "exceeded student growth expectations."
- Overall student proficiency at the school was approximately 10%, placing it among the lowest-performing schools in Ohio on this measure.
- The school serves students who are academically behind, with all students classified as economically disadvantaged.
State Report Details Proficiency Challenges
The 2024-25 Ohio School Report Cards, released on September 15, provide a detailed look at the performance of public schools. For the I Promise School, the results show significant hurdles in meeting state academic standards. The data revealed that in the seventh grade, only two out of 75 students achieved a proficient score in mathematics. The results for English were also low, with only five students in the same grade passing their proficiency test.
Across all grades tested at the school, approximately 10% of students were deemed proficient. This figure places the school's proficiency rate as the 158th lowest among the 3,318 public schools measured in Ohio.
Performance Index Score
The school's Performance Index Score, which measures the test results for every student, was the 125th lowest in the state. However, this score has shown consistent improvement, rising from 27.5 in 2021 to 46.7 in the most recent report.
A Closer Look at the Numbers
The report card assigned the I Promise School a 1-star rating for both Achievement and Early Literacy, the lowest possible score. These ratings reflect the low percentage of students who are passing state-mandated tests.
The school's model is designed to support students who face significant academic and personal challenges. It primarily serves students from disadvantaged backgrounds who have fallen behind in key areas like literacy or have identified learning disabilities.
School Earns High Marks for Progress
While proficiency rates remain a concern, the state report card highlighted a significant area of success for the I Promise School. The school earned a 4-star rating in the Progress category. This metric is designed to measure how much academic growth students make over a school year compared to other similar students across Ohio.
A 4-star rating indicates that the school has "exceeded student growth expectations." This suggests that while students may start the year far behind their peers, the educational strategies at I Promise are helping them learn and catch up at an accelerated pace.
What the Progress Rating Means
The Progress component of the Ohio School Report Cards does not measure absolute test scores. Instead, it tracks individual student improvement from one year to the next. A high rating means students are making more than a full year's worth of academic growth in a single school year.
Officials from Akron Public Schools pointed to this rating as a key indicator of the school's effectiveness. They argue that for a population of students who start with significant academic deficits, growth is the most important measure of success.
"For the I PROMISE School and our school district overall, the most important measure isn’t a single snapshot in time; it’s the journey of progress our students are making," said district spokesperson Stacey Hodoh in a statement. "IPS’s 4 stars in the Progress category... are a powerful testament to this journey."
Hodoh added that the rating is a "clear sign that under the dedicated leadership of Principal Stephanie Davis... our students are on the right path to success."
Understanding the I Promise Model
The I Promise School opened in 2018 as a partnership between Akron Public Schools and The LeBron James Family Foundation. Its mission is to serve at-risk students by providing extensive support systems that go beyond traditional classroom instruction.
Enrollment is conducted through a lottery system for Akron students who are in the bottom 30% for reading scores. For the 2024-25 school year, the school had 470 students in grades three through eight. According to the state report, 100% of these students were economically disadvantaged, and about 20% had a disability.
Wraparound Support Services
The school's unique approach is built on providing "wraparound" services to address non-academic barriers to learning. These resources, supported by the foundation, include:
- Counseling and mental health support
- Health checkups and access to medical care
- Free clothing and school supplies
- Tutoring and extended school hours
- A food pantry for families
This focus on non-classroom support is reflected in the school's spending. State data shows that I Promise spent about one-third of its funding on classroom instruction last year, while the district and state average is closer to two-thirds. However, its non-classroom spending per pupil was slightly higher than the state average.
District-Wide Performance and Context
The performance of the I Promise School is part of a broader picture for Akron Public Schools. The district as a whole showed significant improvement, raising its overall rating from 2.5 stars in 2024 to 3.5 stars in 2025.
According to Hodoh, Akron Public Schools outperformed all seven of Ohio's other large urban school districts. This context is important, as urban districts often face greater challenges related to poverty and resource allocation compared to their suburban counterparts.
The district emphasized that schools across the nation are still working to address the learning loss that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. The steady improvement in the I Promise School's Performance Index and its high growth rating are presented as evidence that its strategies are effectively helping students recover and move forward.
