The top reported proficiency rate is 60% in Math. The lowest is 7% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Lorenz C List School
Lorenz C. List School is the early-elementary building in Frankenmuth School District, serving pre-kindergarten through fourth grade on Genesee Street in Frankenmuth. It is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet, and it feeds into the district's upper grades as children age out. For a parent looking at the early grades, this is a small-town school in a community where the tourism economy and Bavarian heritage define much of daily life, and where the student body is notably homogeneous and economically stable compared with many Michigan elementary schools.
The school's state testing picture comes from the most recent M-STEP results, and it is a mixed but generally solid one. In third grade math, roughly half of tested students reached proficiency, while fourth graders performed markedly better, with a clear majority proficient. English language arts follows the same pattern: third grade sits below the midpoint, with fewer than half proficient, while fourth grade shows a strong majority meeting the bar. The jump between third and fourth grade in both subjects is wide enough to suggest that students make meaningful academic progress during their time here. Science results appear in the data set, but they come from a much older testing year and are not comparable to current results; a parent would want to ask the school about current science instruction rather than rely on that dated figure. Across all tested subjects and grades, the school's overall proficiency places it above the midpoint among districts in Saginaw County, which is a respectable standing in a county with wide variation in school performance.
Because the school stops at fourth grade, there is no graduation rate, no AP or dual-credit coursework, and no career-pathway data to review. Those measures simply do not apply to an elementary building. The same is true for chronic absenteeism, discipline, staffing ratios, and course access: none of these were reported in the data provided, and a parent may want to ask the district directly for current figures on class sizes, specialist teachers, and attendance trends.
The enrollment is small for a building covering kindergarten through fourth grade, and the student population is drawn from a community where a relatively small share of families qualify for free or reduced-price meals. The vast majority of students are white, with a modest Hispanic presence and very few students from other racial or ethnic backgrounds. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not reported, so the picture of special-population support is incomplete here.
Frankenmuth itself is a small city in Saginaw County, built around its German Bavarian heritage. Tourism and farming anchor the economy. The downtown along Main Street is walkable, with Bavarian-style architecture, German-themed shops and restaurants, and the covered bridge over the Cass River. Bronner's CHRISTmas Wonderland, Zehnder's, and the Bavarian Inn are the best-known employers, and the town draws visitors year-round for festivals, chicken dinners, and holiday shopping. Beyond the tourist core, Frankenmuth functions as a residential community with agriculture in the surrounding area. The city sits just east of I-75, making it car-accessible with no public transit system. A major resort expansion at the Bavarian Inn Lodge has been publicly reported, bringing what is described as the largest indoor waterpark in Michigan, but no major new housing developments surfaced in the available research.
The housing market here is more expensive than the state benchmark but below the national one. Estimated mortgage costs reflect current interest rates in the mid-six-percent range, and the price-to-income ratio sits below the national average, suggesting that buying a home in Frankenmuth is relatively attainable for households near the national median income. Rental data was not available.
For the district, no parent-relevant policy changes, referendums, curriculum shifts, or tax changes surfaced in the research. The district did show capital outlay in older fiscal data, but nothing confirmed as a recent change with lasting impact. A parent evaluating Lorenz C. List would find a school with steady academic results in the upper elementary grades, a less economically diverse student body than most Michigan schools, and a community where small-town stability and a tourism-driven local economy shape the environment children grow up in. The third-grade proficiency figures, particularly in English language arts, are the one area where a parent may want to look into this further with the school, to understand what early literacy supports are in place and how the building moves students from below-midpoint third-grade results to strong fourth-grade outcomes.
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