Big Rapids Middle School, Big Rapids MI

Original Research by School Decision on Big Rapids Middle School

Big Rapids Middle School sits in a small Michigan city that wears several identities at once. It is a college town anchored by Ferris State University, a county seat with the courthouse at its center, and a community with a working industrial base and a historic downtown of shops and businesses. The Muskegon River threads through the city, passing both the university and the middle school, and the Fred Meijer White Pine Trail runs through town as a long multi-use path for cycling and walking. The city's population peaked in the 1980s and has declined over the long term, partly tied to shifts in university enrollment, though publicly reported estimates point to slight recent growth. Housing here is relatively affordable compared with state and national benchmarks, and values have been appreciating at a healthy clip in recent months. The price-to-income ratio sits below what many markets carry, which can make the area approachable for families.

The school serves grades five through eight as a regular public school in the Big Rapids Public Schools district. It is not a charter or magnet school. Enrollment is moderate for a middle school of this grade band, with students distributed fairly evenly across the four grades. The student body is predominantly white, with small representations of other racial and ethnic groups. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the economic mix of the community. Data on English learners and special education populations was not available, so those pictures are incomplete here.

Academic results from the most recent state testing cycle tell a mixed story, and the clearest pattern is that English language arts is the school's relative strength while mathematics is where students struggle most. In fifth grade, a slim majority of students reached proficiency in both ELA and science, and those results stand among the brighter spots in the school's profile. Eighth grade ELA, measured through the PSAT, also came in strong, with a clear majority of tested students proficient. Social studies results in both tested grades landed in a middling range.

Mathematics tells a different and weaker story. Proficiency dropped sharply in sixth grade, rebounded somewhat in seventh, and fell again in eighth, where only a small fraction of students met the bar on the PSAT. The sixth grade math result is the lowest single figure in the school's profile. A parent wondering whether the school can sustain academic growth through the middle grades might want to look into this further with the school, particularly how math instruction is sequenced and supported across grades five through eight.

Against its peer set, the school's overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades places it above the midpoint among districts in Mecosta County. That positioning offers some reassurance: the school is not at the bottom of its county on aggregate proficiency, even with the math weakness pulling the average down. No graduation rate applies here, since the school does not serve high school grades, and chronic absenteeism data was not available.

Information on program offerings, course access, staffing, discipline, and attendance was not provided, so there is little to say about extracurriculars, advanced coursework, arts, or support services. The district brief turned up no parent-relevant changes to report. These gaps mean a family would need to go directly to the school for questions about what the day-to-day experience looks like beyond test results.

What the available evidence suggests is a middle school in an affordable, outdoorsy college town, with solid reading and science outcomes in the earlier grades and a genuinely strong eighth grade ELA result, but a persistent mathematics weakness that runs through every tested grade. Families whose children lean toward verbal strengths may find more to like here than families looking for a math-forward trajectory, and in either case the math question is worth a direct conversation with the school.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 540%

School 40% · District 40%

▲ 8 pts above state median

Grade 621%

School 21% · District 20% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 8 pts below state median

Grade 729%

School 29% · District 28% · ▲ 1 pts above district

even with state median

Grade 819%

School 19% · District 18% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 9 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 552%

School 52% · District 52%

▲ 9 pts above state median

Grade 631%

School 31% · District 30% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 3 pts below state median

Grade 739%

School 39% · District 38%

▲ 5 pts above state median

Grade 863%

School 63% · District 64% · ▼ 1 pts below district

even with state median

Science

Grade 552%

School 52% · District 51%

▲ 12 pts above state median

Grade 843%

School 43% · District 44% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▲ 6 pts above state median

Social studies

Grade 531%

School 31% · District 31%

▲ 3 pts above state median

Grade 839%

School 39% · District 38% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 3 pts below state median

This schoolBig Rapids Public Schools, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 5Lower-income40%Higher-income61%20 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income23%Higher-income40%18 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income30%Higher-income47%18 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income54%Higher-income72%19 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income30%Higher-income48%18 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income9%Higher-income34%25 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income17%Higher-income40%23 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income15%Higher-income23%9 pp gap