The top reported proficiency rate is 34% in Math. The lowest is 29% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Gladys Dillon Elementary School
Gladys Dillon Elementary School sits in Burton, a sprawling suburb of Flint in Genesee County, and serves children from kindergarten through third grade. It is part of Carman-Ainsworth Community Schools, one of seven districts with territory overlapping Burton's city limits. The school is small for its grade band, enrolling a few hundred children across four early grades, with the largest cohort in kindergarten and the smallest in third grade.
The student body reflects the community it draws from. A very large share of children qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, one of the highest such rates a school can carry. The enrollment is split fairly evenly between Black and white students, with a smaller group identified as two or more races and a modest Hispanic presence. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not reported, so those populations cannot be characterized here.
Because the school stops at third grade, the only state assessment results available are from the M-STEP tests administered in grade three. Math proficiency landed above the ELA rate, and both sit below the midpoint one might hope to see for a grade-three cohort. Against the comparison set of districts in Genesee County, the school's overall proficiency index lands above the midpoint, which is a reasonable showing given the economic context the school operates in. Still, the proficiency rates themselves leave room for growth, and a parent may want to look into how the school supports early literacy and numeracy with the district directly. No multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to say whether these results represent improvement, decline, or stability. Participation rates were also missing from the data provided.
There is no graduation rate, of course, because the school serves only early elementary grades. Chronic absenteeism data, discipline figures, course access information, staffing details, and attendance records were all absent from the available data. Civil rights reporting was likewise empty. These gaps reflect either untested or unreported areas for a school of this grade span rather than implied weaknesses, though the discipline and attendance absences are ones a parent might reasonably ask the school about.
Housing in the school's zip code is very affordable by any standard. Typical home values sit well below the state and national benchmarks, and rents are correspondingly modest. The broader Genesee County market has seen listing prices climb recently, with homes moving at a measured pace and a decent supply of active listings. For a family looking to buy near the school, the cost of entry is low compared with most of the region. Burton itself is car-dependent, with no traditional walkable downtown. Civic life clusters around a municipal campus on South Center Road, and the city's park system, including Kelly Lake Park and the For-Mar Nature Preserve, provides outdoor recreation options. The community has experienced a slow population decline over the past decade, and no major new housing developments were noted in available sources.
What a family gets at Gladys Dillon is an early-elementary school in an affordable, established suburb, carrying a high-needs population and producing proficiency results that hold their own relative to the county even while leaving clear room to grow. The school's grade span means families will need to plan for where their children go after third grade, and the lack of reported data on attendance, discipline, and special populations means those are conversations to have with the school and district before enrolling.
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