The top reported proficiency rate is 30% in English language arts. The lowest is 18% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Colon High School
Colon High School sits in the village of Colon, a small rural community in St. Joseph County recognized by Congress and the State of Michigan as the "Magic Capital of the World." The village sits between Palmer Lake and Sturgeon Lake, connected by a narrow channel, with the St. Joseph River nearby. It is not near any interstate or major highway, and residents describe it as secluded. The downtown preserves much of its turn-of-the-century architecture and holds magic shops, restaurants, the Colon Museum, and the Colon Public Library. The village is home to Abbott Magic Company, FAB Magic Company, and Sterlini Magic Manufacturing Company, small niche employers with worldwide customers. Median household income is relatively low, and no large-scale industrial employers were identified in publicly reported sources. The population has stayed remarkably stable for decades, with only modest recent growth projected. Housing consists of a mix of Victorian-style homes and more modest houses with yards, and the village website describes low taxes and a quiet, peaceful atmosphere. Street life is minimal except during the summer magic shows and the annual Abbott's Magic Get-Together in August, which brings a large influx of magicians and visitors and concludes each day with an evening show at Colon High School itself.
The school serves grades six through twelve and operates as a regular public school within the Colon Community School District. Enrollment is small for a school covering seven grade levels, and the student body is predominantly white. Nearly half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not available, so those figures are left out rather than estimated.
State assessment results from the most recent school year show a mixed and generally uneven academic picture. In English language arts, sixth-grade proficiency was very low, seventh-grade was higher but still modest, and eighth-grade was comparatively strong, with well over half of tested students meeting proficiency on the PSAT. Math followed a different pattern: sixth grade and eighth grade were low, while seventh grade landed in a middling range. Science and social studies, both tested only at eighth grade, were in the same modest range as the seventh-grade math result. Across all tested subjects and grades, the school's overall proficiency sits in the bottom quartile relative to districts in St. Joseph County, which is the comparison set the data provides. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, particularly the low middle-grade results, to understand what supports are in place and whether the stronger eighth-grade ELA outcome reflects a trajectory the building is building on.
No graduation rate, chronic absenteeism rate, or course access information was available in the data provided, so those are named as gaps rather than filled. The same is true for staffing, discipline, attendance, and Title I status. The district brief turned up little of lasting impact in recent years beyond basic district information and routine annual reporting, so there is not much to report by way of recent changes a parent should know about.
Housing in the Colon zip code is affordable compared with state and national benchmarks. Typical home values sit well below the state figure and are roughly half the national one, and the price-to-income ratio is modest. Year-over-year home value growth has been healthy. Estimated monthly mortgage costs are moderate relative to the local income context. No rental data was available for the zip code. For a family looking at Colon, the housing market is one of the more accessible parts of the picture, with low taxes and stable home values in a quiet lakeside village.
What Colon High School offers is a small, rural, seven-grade school in a close-knit community with a distinctive local identity. The academic results are uneven, with some bright spots in eighth-grade ELA but low proficiency in several middle-grade subjects, and the school sits in the bottom quartile of its county comparison set on overall proficiency. A family considering this school would be weighing a quiet, affordable, secluded village with a unique civic character against questions about academic attainment that the available data does not fully answer. Asking the school directly about middle-grade supports, high school course offerings, and graduation outcomes would be a reasonable next step.
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