The top reported proficiency rate is 68% in Science. The lowest is 42% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Lighthouse Elementary School
Lighthouse Elementary School sits on Washington Street in New Baltimore, a small lakefront city along Anchor Bay on Lake St. Clair. The city grew rapidly in the 2000s and was publicly reported as the fastest-growing community in Macomb County before leveling off in recent years. Today it reads as a suburban residential place with a modest downtown core along Main Street, a seasonal farmers market, and Walter and Mary Burke Park on the waterfront. Outside that downtown stretch, the city is largely auto-dependent, with I-94 a short drive west. The housing market in the school's zip code sits above the state benchmark and below the national one, with values having risen modestly over the past year. Rents are affordable relative to local incomes, and the county market shows a healthy supply of active listings with homes moving in a little over a month on average. For a family weighing where to live, New Baltimore offers waterfront recreation and a traditional small-town downtown at a price point below many Metro Detroit suburbs.
Lighthouse is a regular public school in the Anchor Bay School District serving pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. The student body is predominantly white, with small numbers of students from other racial and ethnic backgrounds. A modest share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The school does not carry charter or magnet status. Information on English learners, special education enrollment, staffing, discipline, attendance, and course access was not available in the data provided, so those dimensions of school life cannot be characterized here.
On state assessments, Lighthouse shows a clear pattern: English language arts results are the strongest part of the academic profile. Fourth-grade ELA proficiency sits well above the state midpoint, and fifth-grade ELA is stronger still. Science proficiency in fifth grade matches that fifth-grade ELA level, which is a genuinely high result for an elementary school. Social studies proficiency in fifth grade lands in a middling range. Mathematics is the soft spot. Third-grade math proficiency is the lowest reported result, with fourth and fifth grade improving but still trailing the strong ELA and science numbers. A parent whose child tends to struggle with early math may want to look into how the school supports that transition. Taken across all tested subjects and grades, Lighthouse's overall proficiency places it in the top quartile relative to districts in Macomb County, which is a solid standing for a neighborhood elementary.
Because Lighthouse serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and that metric does not apply here. No chronic absenteeism figure was available in the data. Multi-year trend data was not provided, so it is not possible to say whether these results represent improvement, stability, or decline over time.
The Anchor Bay district has recently undergone a grade reconfiguration that families should be aware of. Starting in the 2025-2026 school year, elementary schools shifted to serve kindergarten through fourth grade, with Middle School North now taking fifth and sixth graders and Middle School South handling seventh and eighth. This means the fifth-grade experience at Lighthouse reflected in the current test data will move to a middle school building going forward, which changes the transition timeline for younger children currently in the early grades.
At the high school level, the district has used bond funding to build career pathway tracks in engineering and natural science, health and human services, arts and communication, and business and technology. Those do not affect Lighthouse directly but speak to the direction of the system a Lighthouse family would eventually feed into.
What the picture adds up to is a conventional suburban elementary school with genuinely strong reading and science results, respectable standing among Macomb County districts, and a mathematics trajectory that starts low and climbs through the upper grades. The community around it offers lakefront living at a moderate cost, with the trade-offs of car-dependent access and a plateaued population. Families drawn to a smaller-town setting with a clear feeder system into a district investing in career pathways may find this a fit, while those wanting data on special populations, staffing, or attendance will need to ask the school directly.
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