The top reported proficiency rate is 20% in English language arts. The lowest is 13% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Brookside Elementary
Brookside Elementary sits on Madison Avenue SE in Grand Rapids, part of the Grand Rapids Public Schools district. It is a regular public school serving pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, with an enrollment that places it on the smaller side for an elementary school in this urban system. The student body reflects the surrounding neighborhood: a majority of students are Black, with sizable Hispanic and white populations and a smaller group identified as two or more races. A very large share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which is consistent with the economic profile of this part of the city.
State assessment results from the most recent school year show proficiency rates that are low across every tested subject and grade. In math, third and fourth graders posted proficiency rates in the low teens, and fifth grade landed in a reported range at or near the bottom of the scale. English language arts followed a similar pattern, with fourth grade reaching roughly a fifth of tested students scoring proficient while third and fifth grades fell into very low reported ranges. Fifth-grade science and social studies results were also reported in a very low band. Average scale scores were recorded for each grade and subject, giving families a fuller picture than proficiency alone, but the overall pattern is clear: most students at Brookside are not yet meeting state benchmarks. Compared with other districts in Kent County, Brookside's overall proficiency index lands in the bottom quartile. A parent considering this school may want to ask the administration directly about what interventions and support structures are in place, and how the school's recent strategic plan work is translating into classroom-level changes at this building.
Multi-year trend data was not available, so there is no way to tell from the provided numbers whether proficiency is improving, declining, or holding steady. Participation rates for the state tests were also missing from the data. Because Brookside serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and that absence simply reflects the grade band rather than any gap in performance.
The school sits in the 49507 zip code, where home values are well below the state and national benchmarks. Typical home values in this area are modest, and rents are affordable relative to income. The Kent County housing market more broadly is active, with a steady flow of new listings and pending sales, and median listing prices in the county running well above what homes in this immediate neighborhood command. For a family renting near Brookside, monthly costs are manageable; for a family looking to buy, the area offers one of the more accessible entry points into the Grand Rapids market.
Grand Rapids itself is Michigan's second-largest city and the economic anchor of West Michigan. Its economy, once dominated by furniture manufacturing, now runs on healthcare, education, retail, and technology. The city's downtown core along the Grand River is walkable and active, with museums, breweries, Van Andel Arena, and the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum concentrated in a compact area. The Medical Mile corridor has drawn major investment, including expansions by Corewell Health and the Van Andel Institute, and the city hosts ArtPrize annually. Walkability tapers off in the outer residential neighborhoods, which are more car-dependent, and Brookside's location on the southeast side places it in one of those quieter residential stretches.
The parent district, Grand Rapids Public Schools, operates under a 2022-2027 Strategic Plan built from community input and aimed at restoring stability and growth. The district has publicly reported that prior transformation efforts produced increased graduation rates, decreased chronic absenteeism, and improved test scores across the system. Whether those district-level gains have yet surfaced at Brookside in particular is a question the available data cannot answer, since no trend figures were provided for this building. Information on staffing, course access, discipline, attendance, and special populations such as English learners or students with individualized education programs was also missing, so those dimensions of the school environment could not be assessed here.
What the data does say is that Brookside is a small, neighborhood-serving elementary school in an affordable part of a growing midwestern city, serving a student population with substantial economic need, and that academic outcomes as measured by the state are currently low. Families weighing this school should look closely at what the building is doing day to day to move those numbers, and how the district's strategic plan is being implemented at the school level.
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