Red Oak Academy

Red Oak Academy is a small, public K-8 school in Clinton Township, MI, serving just 60 students as its own standalone district—a fraction of the size of nearby elementary schools, which typically enroll between 278 and 519 students.

What makes Red Oak Academy stand out is its remarkable academic success despite serving a student body where 98% qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. In the 2024-2025 school year, 61.54% of 6th graders were proficient in math and 53.85% in English Language Arts—nearly double Michigan's state averages. This is especially striking when compared to nearby schools with similar poverty rates, such as Robbie Hall Parker School and Seminole Academy, where chronic absenteeism exceeds 57% and test scores lag far behind. Red Oak's chronic absenteeism rate is just 16.1%, suggesting strong family engagement and school culture. The school invests heavily in its students, spending $24,408 per pupil—over $6,000 more than the next highest-spending traditional school in the area—and maintains a 10:1 student-to-teacher ratio, the lowest among all comparable schools. This combination of resources and individualized attention appears to be a deliberate strategy that is paying off.

However, the data reveals some unevenness in upper grades. While 6th-grade scores are exceptional, 7th and 8th-grade results from 2025-2026 are more mixed, with 8th-grade PSAT math proficiency at just 20% and social studies at 33.33%, both below state averages. Given the tiny cohort sizes, the performance of just a few students can dramatically shift percentages. Still, Red Oak Academy stands as a high-performing outlier in a challenging landscape, offering a K-8 structure that allows families to track their child's progress in one consistent environment from kindergarten through middle school—a unique option compared to the K-5 schools that dominate the surrounding Red Oak Academy district area.