The top reported proficiency rate is 38% in Math. The lowest is 34% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Hillcrest Elementary School
Hillcrest Elementary School sits on East Elizabeth Street in Alma, the largest city in Gratiot County, serving first through third graders as part of Alma Public Schools. The district has organized its elementary buildings by grade band rather than neighborhood, so Hillcrest takes all of the community's first, second, and third graders under one roof. Younger children attend Luce Road Early Childhood Center for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, and older elementary students move on to Pine Avenue Elementary for grades four and five. This setup means a child's peers shift between buildings as they age, but within each building the whole age cohort is together. The district also runs a one-to-one technology initiative, giving each student a device, which shapes how curriculum and coursework are delivered even at these early grades.
Alma itself is a small city with a walkable downtown along Superior Street, where the municipal building and public library anchor civic life. Alma College, a private liberal arts school, sits about a mile east of downtown and adds arts and cultural offerings that a community this size would not otherwise have. Manufacturing and food processing have long been the industrial backbone, with Alma Products making automotive exhaust components and Pilgrim's Pride running a poultry processing plant. MidMichigan Medical Center anchors the healthcare sector. The city sits at the crossroads of M-46 and US-127, which residents and the city government describe as being in the middle of everything. Housing here is affordable compared with state and national benchmarks, with home values well below the Michigan median and roughly half the national figure. A modest price-to-income ratio makes ownership attainable for working families, and the housing stock mixes single-family homes with apartment complexes of varying sizes.
The school's enrollment is evenly distributed across its three grade levels, and the student body is predominantly white, with a small Hispanic presence and very few students from other racial or ethnic backgrounds. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which reflects the working-class character of the community. Information on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not reported in the available data, so those population shares cannot be described here.
State testing at Hillcrest comes from the M-STEP assessment, and only third graders are tested at this school because first and second grade fall outside the state's tested range. In math, roughly thirty-eight percent of third graders reached proficient or above. In English language arts, about a third of third graders were proficient. When the school is compared against districts in Gratiot County on overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades, Hillcrest lands in the bottom quartile, below the county median. The county's higher-performing districts post proficiency rates in the low forties, while Hillcrest sits closer to the lower end of the range. This is a real gap, and a parent may want to look into this further with the school, asking what intervention and support structures are in place for children who are below grade level.
No graduation rate applies here, since Hillcrest does not serve high school grades. Chronic absenteeism data was not available, and the participation rate for state testing was not reported, though the tested student count was.
The community context is one of stability rather than rapid change. Alma's population has grown only slightly over the past decade, and development efforts have centered on downtown reinvestment rather than outward expansion. The city's parks department manages ten parks and a community center with youth programs and sports leagues, and the public library offers programming and internet access. Gratiot County Transit runs demand-response service but no fixed bus routes, so getting around is car-dependent. For a family weighing Hillcrest, the picture is of an affordable small-city school in a community with genuine civic infrastructure, a strong college presence, and steady industrial employment. The academic results at third grade are below the county midpoint, and that is the question most worth pressing on when visiting or talking with staff.
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