The top reported proficiency rate is 20% in English language arts. The lowest is 14% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Kenosha Park Elementary
KenOSha Park Elementary sits on the southeast side of Grand Rapids, in a residential stretch of a city that wears its industrial past and its reinvention side by side. Grand Rapids is Michigan's second-largest city, a place built on furniture manufacturing that has remade itself into a healthcare, education, and craft-brewery hub. The Grand River runs through downtown, and the Medical Mile corridor has drawn major investment in health-sciences institutions. Corewell Health, Meijer, and Steelcase anchor the regional economy. For a family looking at this school, the backdrop is a mid-sized urban center with active downtown cultural life and quieter outer neighborhoods where car dependence increases.
The school is part of Grand Rapids Public Schools, a district operating under a publicly reported strategic plan covering a five-year span through the late twenties. The district says the plan builds on a prior transformation effort that, by its own account, produced higher graduation rates, lower chronic absenteeism, and improved test scores across the system. The current plan sets priority outcomes shaped by community input. What this means for KenOSha Park specifically is not detailed in the available data, so a parent would want to ask the school directly how the district's themes translate into classroom-level changes here.
KenOSha Park serves pre-kindergarten through fifth grade and is a regular public school, not a magnet or charter. The enrollment is small for an elementary school spanning that many grades. The student body is predominantly Black, with a large Hispanic presence and smaller shares of white, multiracial, and Asian students. Nearly every child at the school qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which places it among the highest-poverty schools in the county. The data does not include counts for English learners or students with individualized education programs, so those figures are absent rather than zero.
On state assessments, the results are a clear soft spot. Across third, fourth, and fifth grade math, third and fourth grade English language arts, and fifth grade social studies, proficiency fell into the lowest reported band. Fifth grade ELA reached a higher level, with roughly a fifth of tested students meeting proficiency. Fifth grade science landed just above that. Average scale scores are reported for each tested grade and subject, but the overall picture is one where most students are not yet reaching state proficiency benchmarks. When measured against other districts in Kent County, the school's combined proficiency index sits in the bottom quartile. This is a factual finding, not a verdict on the school's effort or the children's potential, but a parent weighing this school should ask what targeted supports and interventions are in place, how the district's strategic plan addresses schools with this profile, and what growth trends look like over time.
Some data the page does not carry. There is no graduation rate because the school does not serve high school grades. Chronic absenteeism figures are not reported. Discipline, staffing, and course-access details are absent. The school's Title I status and magnet designation are listed as null. These gaps limit a fuller read, and a parent may want to look into them further with the school or district directly.
The housing market around the school's ZIP code is more affordable than the Kent County median. Typical home values run below the state and national benchmarks, and rents are moderate relative to income. The countywide market shows steady listing prices and homes moving at a measured pace. For families tied to the area by work or family, housing costs near the school are comparatively manageable, though the broader Grand Rapids market has seen ongoing development pressure from the health-sciences sector and population growth.
What kind of fit is this? KenOsha Park is a small, high-poverty neighborhood elementary in an urban district working through a strategic improvement plan. Its state test results are low, and the comparison data places it near the bottom of the county's districts on proficiency. A family choosing this school would be choosing a close-knit, community-rooted setting and should engage directly with the school about academic supports, classroom resources, and how the district's stated priorities are reaching this building.
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