Grant Middle School, Grant MI - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Grant Middle School

Grant Middle School serves grades five through eight in Grant, a small rural community in southern Newaygo County. The town sits along the M-37 corridor and functions partly as a bedroom community for Grand Rapids to the south and Muskegon to the west. Grant has a deep agricultural heritage, once known as the "Onion Capital of the World," and still home to some of the largest muck farms east of the Mississippi. Publicly reported sources describe it as a growing rural community with small-town charm, where housing remains relatively affordable compared with both state and national benchmarks. The civic fabric is compact, with schools, parks, City Hall, and the Grant Area District Library all in close proximity. The Grant Fine Arts Center, part of the school district, hosts events year-round. Major employers were not named in available sources, though agriculture, municipal government, and the school district itself anchor the local economy.

The school enrolled roughly four hundred fifty students across its four grades, with each grade level at about the same size. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The student body is predominantly white, with a sizable Hispanic population and small numbers of students from other racial and ethnic backgrounds. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not available, so those populations could not be characterized here.

On state assessments for the most recent year, Grant Middle School's results tell a mixed but recognizable story. English language arts is the school's relative strength. Fifth and sixth graders showed proficiency rates in the mid-forties, seventh grade dipped into the mid-thirties, and eighth grade stood out with a strong majority proficient. That eighth-grade ELA result is the school's single brightest spot and suggests real growth in literacy as students approach high school. Math results were weaker across the board. Fifth-grade math proficiency was very low, and while sixth and eighth grades improved to around a third of students testing proficient, the overall math picture is one where most students are not yet reaching state benchmarks. Science and social studies fell in between, with eighth-grade social studies reaching nearly half of students proficient.

Against its peer set, Grant Middle School's overall proficiency sits in the top quartile relative to districts in Newaygo County. That positioning reflects the strength of its ELA and social studies scores pulling the average up, even as math remains a soft area. A parent weighing this school may want to look into how math instruction is structured across the grade levels, particularly at the entry point in fifth grade, where the proficiency drop is steepest.

Because Grant Middle School serves only middle grades, there is no graduation rate to report. Chronic absenteeism data was also not available. No information was provided on disciplinary practices, staffing ratios, course access, or specialized programs, so those dimensions could not be assessed. The district brief turned up little of lasting impact regarding recent changes at the district level.

For housing context, home values in the Grant area are modest by national standards and sit just below the state benchmark, with recent year-over-year appreciation outpacing both state and national growth rates. That affordability, combined with the commute access to Grand Rapids and Muskegon, shapes the community's identity as a place where families can find lower-cost housing while maintaining access to larger employment centers. The result is a small-town setting where the middle school functions as a central institution, serving a working-class and rural population with a particular strength in developing readers and writers, and a clear area of need in mathematics.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 510%

School 10% · District 10%

▼ 22 pts below state median

Grade 632%

School 32% · District 32%

▲ 4 pts above state median

Grade 723%

School 23% · District 23%

▼ 6 pts below state median

Grade 831%

School 31% · District 31%

▲ 4 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 544%

School 44% · District 44%

▲ 2 pts above state median

Grade 643%

School 43% · District 43%

▲ 9 pts above state median

Grade 736%

School 36% · District 36%

▲ 2 pts above state median

Grade 864%

School 64% · District 64%

▲ 2 pts above state median

Science

Grade 543%

School 43% · District 43%

▲ 4 pts above state median

Grade 834%

School 34% · District 34%

▼ 4 pts below state median

Social studies

Grade 531%

School 31% · District 31%

▲ 3 pts above state median

Grade 848%

School 48% · District 48%

▲ 5 pts above state median

This schoolGrant Public School District, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 5Lower-income40%Higher-income56%16 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income31%Higher-income62%31 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income28%Higher-income50%22 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income50%Higher-income84%34 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income5%Higher-income22%17 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income20%Higher-income51%31 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income17%Higher-income33%16 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income19%Higher-income48%29 pp gap