Horizon Science Academy-Denison Middle School

Horizon Science Academy–Denison Middle School is the only school in this data set, so there are no peers to compare it against — it is a single-campus, single-school Horizon Science Academy–Denison Middle School district in Cleveland serving grades K–8 with 302 students. Note one quirk: despite the "Middle School" name, the state codes it as an elementary school, so families searching by "middle school" may not find it.

Academically, the school sits persistently in the bottom roughly 13% of Ohio schools, with a 1-star rating in each of the last three years and an average proficiency of 31.6% against a 60.1% state average in 2025–26. Across two years and 28 test results, the school beat the state average exactly once — 8th grade math in 2024–25 (48.3% vs 47.6%) — and did not repeat that result the following year, when it fell to 33.3%. The profile is not uniform. ELA is the relative bright spot: 6th grade ELA reached 44.4% in 2025–26, just 11.6 points behind the state and up 22.2 points in a year, and 5th grade ELA hit 42.4%. Science improved the most, gaining 12.9 points on average, including an 8th grade science jump of 16.3 points. Math is the weak spot, down 6.5 points on average, with 5th grade math falling nearly 20 points to 18.2% — the lowest score in the file. 4th grade is the sharpest pressure point, posting the widest gaps to the state in both math (−45.1 points) and ELA (−42.4 points).

Two context points matter for families. First, 38.6% of students — roughly 115–120 of 302 — were chronically absent in 2025–26, a substantial headwind, though the file offers no state or district benchmark and only one year of data. Second, poverty data is not reported at all, and per-student spending of $7,421 is from 2018–19, seven years older than the newest test scores. Grade sizes are also small — about 34 students per grade — so a 10–20 point year-over-year swing can reflect only a handful of students. Treat single-year changes as directional signals rather than precise measurements.