The top reported proficiency rate is 72% in Science. The lowest is 44% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Springfield Plains Elem School
Springfield Plains Elementary sits on Holcomb Road in Clarkston, in northern Oakland County, and serves children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as part of the Clarkston Community School District. The school is a regular public elementary with no charter or magnet designation. Its enrollment is moderate for an elementary building, with classes spread fairly evenly across kindergarten and the upper grades, though the pre-kindergarten slot listed in the grade span shows no enrolled students in the data, which likely reflects how the district structures early childhood rather than an anomaly worth concern.
The student body is largely homogeneous. The great majority of students are white, with small representation across Hispanic, Asian, Black, and multiracial backgrounds. A small fraction of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school among the lower-poverty elementaries in its area. The data does not include individualized education program counts or English learner figures, so those supports cannot be characterized here. A parent whose child receives special education or English-language services would want to ask the school directly about what is available.
On Michigan's M-STEP assessments for the most recent reported year, Springfield Plains shows strong results. In English language arts, the majority of third graders and an even larger share of fourth and fifth graders reached proficiency, with fourth grade the standout. Math results follow a similar pattern, with most tested students proficient across third, fourth, and fifth grades, though fifth-grade math sits a step below the fourth-grade peak. Fifth-grade science is a particular bright spot, with a clear majority proficient. Social studies is the softer spot, with fewer than half of fifth graders reaching proficiency. The state flagged a change in the social studies cut score, which can affect comparability, so a parent may want to look into this further with the school. Against the comparison set of districts across Oakland County, the school's overall proficiency lands in the top quartile, which is a meaningful strength. No multi-year trend data was available, so the picture is a single-year snapshot rather than a trajectory. Participation rates were also missing from the data.
Because Springfield Plains is an elementary school, there is no graduation rate to report, and that metric simply does not apply here. The data also does not include chronic absenteeism, discipline, course access, staffing, or attendance figures, so those dimensions of school environment cannot be described. The school's locale classification was not provided in the data either.
Clarkston itself is an unusual place. Officially the City of the Village of Clarkston, it is a tiny, historic mill village of roughly half a square mile, the smallest city by land area in Michigan, surrounded entirely by Independence Township. It sits about thirty-four miles northwest of downtown Detroit. The village grew around saw and grist mills in the 1830s, and a nationally recognized historic district now protects many of its older structures along Main Street and the surrounding grid. The Mill Pond, a section of the Clinton River, anchors the village center. Henry Ford once maintained a summer home there, and his old mill building has been converted into a small complex of art galleries and offices. The village is compact enough to walk, though Main Street carries state-highway through-traffic, and the surrounding township is car-dependent suburban. Most school campuses in the Clarkston district, including Springfield Plains, sit out in Independence Township rather than in the village proper, which is essentially a small downtown and residential pocket.
The housing market around the school reflects an affluent suburban setting. Typical home values in the school's zip code sit well above both the state and national benchmarks, and the estimated monthly mortgage on a typical home is substantial. Oakland County's market shows growing inventory, with active listings up meaningfully year over year and homes spending a little over a month on the market. Median listing prices have softened slightly. Rents in the area run below the estimated mortgage payment, which is a consideration for families deciding between renting and buying. The broader employment picture is stable, with unemployment holding around a low single-digit level.
For district families, the publicly reported rebuilding and 2025 reopening of Clarkston Junior High, which serves grades eight and nine, is a recent capital improvement that may matter down the line for Springfield Plains students moving through the system.
Springfield Plains fits families looking for a well-performing, relatively affluent elementary school in a historic small-town setting with suburban surroundings and a manageable commute to the Detroit metro area. Its academic results are a genuine strength, its peer environment is homogeneous, and its softer spots in social studies and missing support data are worth a direct conversation with the school before enrolling.
See more original research from School Decision →