The top reported proficiency rate is 32% in English language arts. The lowest is 10% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Clarenceville Middle School
Clarenceville Middle School sits on Middlebelt Road in Livonia, a large western suburb of Detroit, and serves grades six through eight as part of the smaller of the city's two public school districts. Livonia itself is a sprawling, car-dependent place with no traditional downtown, organized around arterial mile roads and highway access. Civic life centers on a Civic Center complex near Five Mile and Farmington Roads, and the city's identity is built around residential neighborhoods, a large industrial and manufacturing corridor, and a "Families First" motto. For a family considering this school, the setting is squarely suburban: strip commercial corridors, separated institutional campuses, and convenient driving access to I-96 and the wider metro area. Public transit information was not available in the materials we reviewed.
The school's enrollment is modest for a middle school. Its student body is diverse, with Black students forming the largest group and White students close behind, plus smaller Hispanic, Asian, and multiracial populations. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, which tells you this is a school serving a working-class community within a suburb that is, on the whole, more affluent. The district-level context we looked for was thin; we found little about recent strategic changes or program rollouts, so we left that out rather than guess.
State assessment results from the most recent year tell a clear and mixed story. English language arts is the stronger subject. Proficiency rates in sixth and seventh grade land in the upper twenties, and eighth-grade ELA on the PSAT rises into the low forties, a relative bright spot. Math is the soft area. Sixth-grade math proficiency sits near the lower twenties, but it drops sharply by seventh grade and falls further in eighth grade on the PSAT, where only a small fraction of students reach proficiency. Science and social studies results for eighth grade sit in the low twenties. Taken together, the school's overall proficiency index sits just below the midpoint among Wayne County districts, a comparison set that draws on county membership rather than adjacent boundaries. A parent weighing this school may want to look into how math instruction and intervention are structured across the three grades, particularly given the decline from sixth to eighth.
Some data a parent might expect was not available. The school did not report participation rates for state assessments, and IEP and English-learner counts were missing from the data we received, so we cannot speak to special-education enrollment or the size of the multilingual learner population. Chronic absenteeism figures were not available, and because this is a middle school, there is no graduation rate to report. Title I status was also not provided.
The housing context around the school offers a relatively accessible entry point for buyers. The typical home value in the school's zip code sits below the state benchmark and well below the national one, and rents are modest. The broader Wayne County market shows a healthy supply of active listings and a median listing price that has drifted slightly lower over the past year. Days on market have ticked up a bit but remain in a moderate range. Estimated monthly mortgage costs run somewhat above typical rents, which means renting near this school is cheaper than buying at current rates, a dynamic that may matter for families prioritizing flexibility.
What the data describes is a middle school doing better with reading and writing than with math, serving a diverse and largely economically disadvantaged student body in a suburban setting where housing costs are lower than much of the region. The strengths are in ELA, especially by eighth grade. The weakness is in math, and it is persistent enough across grades that a family should ask direct questions about it. The missing data on special populations and absenteeism is a gap worth filling by contacting the school directly.
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