I Promise School

I Promise School is a grade 3–8 school at 400 W Market St in Akron, Ohio, serving 478 students in the Akron City district, and it is the only school in its comparison group that starts in third grade.

Over the last four years, I Promise has ranked from the 1st to the 5th percentile of Ohio schools and has never earned a star; in 2025–2026 it placed 995 of 1,046, which is the lowest of all eleven schools in this comparison group — below Innes Community Learning Center (10th percentile) and Jennings Community Learning Center (18th percentile), and far below Miller-South Visual Performing Arts (57th percentile, 3 stars) and National Inventors Hall of Fame School Center for STEM (85th percentile, 4 stars). The district itself ranks 643 of 773, at the 17th percentile with 1 star, and I Promise generally scores below even that district average — trailing it by roughly 16 points in math, 22 points in ELA, and 25 points in science across tested grades, and trailing the state by roughly 40 to 55 points. The one exception is 8th grade math, where 16.4% is essentially level with the district's 18.6%.

Its clearest strengths are attendance and class size: chronic absenteeism was 38.1% in 2025–2026, below the district's 40.9% in all five reported years, and its 9.7 students per teacher is the smallest ratio in the group. Per-pupil spending of $8,662 (2018–19) is the lowest among Akron City schools here, though that figure comes from the school's first year and may not reflect current resourcing. Upper-grade math has roughly doubled from a very low base over four years, and English-language-learner and special-education students post the school's strongest subgroup results — about the 18th–19th percentile statewide, still in the bottom fifth. The weakest areas are the early grades, a persistently near-zero 6th grade ELA result, and 8th grade science at 4.5%, the lowest single figure in the entire dataset. Note that no free/reduced-lunch or Algebra I data is reported, limiting comparisons.