The top reported proficiency rate is 63% in English language arts. The lowest is 28% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Detour High School
DeTour High School sits in De Tour Village, a tiny community at the far eastern edge of Michigan's Upper Peninsula where the St. Mary's River meets Lake Huron. The village grew around milling and Ojibwe settlement and now functions mainly as a recreational destination, oriented around boating, fishing, paddling, and snowmobiling. The Drummond Island Ferry dock and state marina anchor waterfront life, and the community is remote, connected to the interstate by a long stretch of state highway heading west. Housing here is modestly priced relative to state and national levels, and the local economy leans heavily on tourism and the ferry operation, with seasonal employment a reality for many families. The school itself is part of DeTour Area Schools, a small district for which little parent-relevant change surfaced in public reporting, so there is no recent record of referendums, curriculum shifts, or property-tax moves to factor in.
This is a very small school serving grades seven through twelve, with an enrollment that is tiny even by rural UP standards. Just over half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The student body is predominantly white, with a meaningful Native American and Alaska Native presence and a small number of students identifying as Black or multiracial. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was not available, so those populations cannot be characterized here. The setting is intimate by nature: with so few students across six grade levels, peer groups are small and the social environment is tight-knit.
State assessment data comes from a single year of M-STEP testing. In English language arts, the school showed real strength, with a clear majority of tested seventh and eighth graders reaching proficiency, results that stand out positively for a school of this size and setting. Social studies proficiency was moderate, with about half of tested eighth graders proficient. Science results for seventh grade were also moderate. Math was the soft spot, with proficiency well below the levels seen in ELA, and a parent may want to look into this further with the school, particularly given how small the tested groups are and that participation rates were only about half of eligible students in math and ELA. When testing groups are this small, a single year's results can swing widely, so the numbers should be read with that in mind. No multi-year trend data was available to show whether these results represent a pattern or a one-year snapshot. Against its county peers, the school's overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades placed in the top quartile among Chippewa County districts, a positioning that reflects the strong ELA and social studies showing.
Graduation rate data was not available for this school, and chronic absenteeism figures were also missing, so those outcomes cannot be assessed. No data on course access, staffing, discipline, or attendance was provided. Program offerings, including any Advanced Placement, dual-enrollment, or career-pathway options, were not available in the data, and that is a gap a parent would want to ask the school about directly, especially for college-bound high schoolers in a remote setting where such pathways can matter.
What this school offers, from the evidence at hand, is a very small, closely connected learning environment in a remote waterfront community where outdoor recreation and tourism define daily life. The academic picture is mixed but includes genuinely strong reading results alongside weaker math performance, all drawn from small testing groups in a single year. For a family considering this area, the affordability of housing and the tight community are real draws, while the limited program data and missing outcome measures are things to probe directly with the district before making a decision.
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