The top reported proficiency rate is 40% in English language arts. The lowest is 30% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Hagar Township S/d #6
Hagar Township S/D #6 is a very small, single-school district in Berrien County, Michigan, serving students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade. Its one school, Riverside School, is the entirety of the district. With a total enrollment well under a hundred students, this is a place where every grade cohort is tiny, often in the single digits, and that smallness shapes almost everything about what families encounter here.
The student body is modestly diverse. A little over half of students are White, about a quarter are Black, and a smaller share are Hispanic, with a handful of students identified as two or more races. Data on free or reduced-price lunch was not available, and the district did not report figures for students with individualized education programs or English learners, so those pieces of the picture are missing.
Academically, the district's state testing results are limited by the sheer size of its tested groups. Michigan's M-STEP assessments reported results for third and fifth grade, where ten students sat for each test. In those grades, proficiency was generally on the lower end. Third-grade English language arts showed roughly a third of students reaching proficiency, and fifth-grade ELA reached about half. Math results for both third and fifth grade fell in a reported range that did not exceed the midpoint. Fifth-grade science and social studies each showed about a third of tested students proficient. Results for fourth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grades were suppressed, which in a district this small typically reflects the state's privacy thresholds for very small testing groups rather than a judgment about performance. No trend data across years was available, and participation rates were not reported. A parent considering this district may want to ask the school directly about how it tracks progress grade to grade, since the public data here is thin.
Because Hagar Township serves only through eighth grade, there is no graduation rate to report. Students presumably transition to a neighboring high school district for ninth grade and beyond, though the available data does not specify which one. Families would want to confirm that pathway on their own.
Among Berrien County's districts with available proficiency data, Hagar Township's overall proficiency index sits just below the county midpoint. On the positive side, its chronic absenteeism rate falls in the top quartile among county districts, meaning students here are showing up for school at rates better than most of their peers across Berrien County. Per-pupil spending is in the lower range compared with neighboring districts, which is worth noting but does not by itself tell families much about classroom experience in a district this small.
The housing market around the district is genuinely affordable. Home values in the area sit well below both the Michigan and national benchmarks, and the price-to-income ratio is below the national average, suggesting that homeownership is within reach for more households than in many parts of the state. Rent data was not available. The district brief turned up no confirmed parent-relevant changes or strategic initiatives in the recent span, and no locale brief was available for the township itself, so community context is limited to what the economic and housing figures provide.
No data was available on course access, staffing ratios, discipline, school climate, or specialized programs. Title I status, charter status, and magnet status were all unreported. This is a district where the publicly available record is sparse, and the gaps are real. What the data does show is a very small, tight-knit elementary district with low absenteeism, affordable housing, and academic results that are mixed and difficult to fully evaluate given the small numbers involved. Families drawn to small-school settings in a rural or semi-rural corner of Berrien County may find the intimacy appealing, but they should plan to ask the school directly for the kinds of details that state reports simply cannot capture at this scale.
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