The top reported proficiency rate is 16% in Math. The lowest is 15% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Post Franklin School
Post Franklin School sits on Newark Avenue in Battle Creek, part of the Battle Creek Public Schools district. It is a regular public school serving kindergarten through second grade, which makes it an early-elementary building. That grade band matters for how you read the data here, because Michigan's state assessment, the M-STEP, begins in third grade. A school that teaches only kindergarten through second grade has no current state testing results, and that is the situation at Post Franklin today. The absence is a function of the grade range, not a missing report.
The school does carry historical M-STEP results from a prior configuration, when it apparently served grades three through five. Those results, from the 2015-16 school year, showed proficiency rates well below state expectations across math, English language arts, science, and social studies. Third-grade math and ELA were the strongest relative to the school's own other grades, though still modest. Fourth-grade results dropped sharply, and fifth-grade proficiency fell into a very low range. Science and social studies results were similarly low. The school's overall proficiency index from that period places it in the bottom quartile relative to districts in Calhoun County, a set of fifteen districts where Post Franklin's index sits near the low end. A parent looking at this school today should treat those numbers as a historical snapshot of a different grade configuration rather than a current portrait. The school now serves younger children, and no comparable measure exists for K-2. This is a gap a parent may want to look into further with the school, asking how the building tracks early literacy and numeracy progress before students move on to third grade and state testing begins.
Enrollment is modest for a K-2 building, with each grade level roughly equal in size. The student body reflects a community facing substantial economic need. A very large share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The school's racial and ethnic composition is diverse, with the largest group being Black students, followed by White students, and then a mix of Hispanic students and students of two or more races. A small number of Asian students are enrolled as well. Data on special education and English learner populations was not available, so those shares cannot be characterized here.
The surrounding neighborhood offers relatively affordable housing compared with both Michigan and national benchmarks. Home values in the school's zip code sit well below the state median, and rents are similarly modest. The price-to-income ratio for the area is favorable on a national scale, meaning local housing costs are low relative to typical household income. For families renting, monthly rent is quite affordable compared with what a mortgage would cost, and the gap between the two is wide enough that renting remains the cheaper option in this area. Home values have been rising modestly year over year, tracking a similar rate of growth to the state as a whole, though from a much lower base.
We looked for the district's recent parent-relevant changes from Battle Creek Public Schools but found little in the way of publicly reported developments with lasting impact, so rather than guess at initiatives or programs, that section is left blank. No locale-specific civic anchor information was returned either.
What a parent is looking at with Post Franklin is a small early-elementary school in an affordable, diverse, high-poverty corner of Battle Creek. The school's current grade range means there is no live proficiency data to judge it by. The historical results from its upper-grade years were weak, and that is worth acknowledging plainly, but those results do not describe what the school is doing today with five- through eight-year-olds. A family considering this school would want to ask the building directly about how they measure early reading and math growth, what supports exist for children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and how students transition into third grade at their next school, where state testing will begin.
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