Hale Area School, Hale MI - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Hale Area School

Hale Area School is a single building serving kindergarten through twelfth grade in the unincorporated community of Hale, in Iosco County, Michigan. It is the kind of small, rural, all-grades school where younger and older students share the same corridors along Washington Street and Main Street, the two roads that form the community's core. The school sits integrated into the town rather than on a separate campus, and Hale Area Schools is itself the primary identifiable local employer. For a family considering this school, that integration means the building is a civic anchor as much as an academic one.

The community context matters here. Hale began as a lumber camp and has grown into a residential and commercial strip along the M-65 highway, with publicly reported descriptions calling it a fast-growing area thanks to its proximity to lakes, the Au Sable River, and Huron National Forest. The built environment is highway-oriented, and available sources note limited traditional pedestrian infrastructure. No public library or formal transit system was identified. The housing market is affordable relative to state and national benchmarks, with typical home values well below the Michigan statewide figure and roughly half the national figure. That affordability, paired with the recreational setting, shapes who moves in and who stays.

Enrollment is small, with roughly two dozen to three dozen students per grade level. The student body is predominantly white, with small representations of Hispanic students and students of two or more races. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was not available, so those populations cannot be characterized here.

Academic performance on Michigan's M-STEP and PSAT assessments shows real variation across grades and subjects. In mathematics, proficiency is strongest in the early grades, with third grade standing out as a relative bright spot, and it dips noticeably in the middle grades before partially recovering in seventh grade. Eighth grade math proficiency is low. In English language arts, the pattern is similarly uneven, with fifth and eighth grade reaching moderate proficiency while sixth grade is quite low. Science results show a strong fifth grade performance and a weaker eighth grade. Social studies sits in a moderate range for both tested grades. Taken together, the school's overall proficiency index places it in the top quartile relative to other districts in Iosco County, which is a genuine strength given the resource constraints of a small rural district. That said, the inconsistency from grade to grade, particularly the middle-grade dips in both math and ELA, is something a parent may want to look into further with the school.

Several data points that would help round out the picture were not available. No graduation rate was reported for comparison purposes, and chronic absenteeism data was missing as well. The school serves high school grades, so the absence of a graduation figure is not explained by the grade band alone, and a parent would be right to ask about it directly. No course access, staffing, discipline, or attendance data was provided. Program offerings such as Advanced Placement, career and technical education, or dual enrollment were not listed in the available data, and for a school this size in a rural setting, those offerings may be limited. This is worth confirming with the district, especially for families of older students thinking about postsecondary preparation.

The district brief turned up no recent referendums, curriculum overhauls, or other parent-relevant changes, so there is little to report on the strategic direction front.

What Hale Area School offers is a small, community-rooted environment where families know one another and the school is central to civic life, set in an affordable recreational gateway town. Its academic results are stronger than the county midpoint overall, with particular strength in some early and upper grades, but the middle-grade proficiency dips and the missing graduation and program data mean a family should ask direct questions before enrolling an older student.

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Academic performance

State test results and graduation outcomes.

Graduation rate (ACGR)

>=80%Cohort of 22 students · Class of 2021

The federal source publishes a banded range instead of an exact rate when the graduating cohort is small enough that an exact number could risk identifying individual students.

How this school compares to all schools in this state

Each dot is one school’s SY 2020-21 graduation rate, binned by integer rate. Taller columns mean more schools at that rate. This school is highlighted.

1,027 schools plotted. 80 additional schools' rates are federally suppressed and not shown. Data: EDFacts SY 2020-21.

Math

Grade 358%

School 58% · District 58%

▲ 16 pts above state median

Grade 441%

School 41% · District 41%

▲ 2 pts above state median

Grade 539%

School 39% · District 39%

▲ 8 pts above state median

Grade 623%

School 23% · District 23%

▼ 5 pts below state median

Grade 750%

School 50% · District 50%

▲ 21 pts above state median

Grade 829%

School 29% · District 29%

▲ 1 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 336%

School 36% · District 36%

▼ 1 pts below state median

Grade 441%

School 41% · District 41%

even with state median

Grade 554%

School 54% · District 54%

▲ 12 pts above state median

Grade 619%

School 19% · District 19%

▼ 14 pts below state median

Grade 750%

School 50% · District 50%

▲ 16 pts above state median

Grade 857%

School 57% · District 57%

▼ 5 pts below state median

Science

Grade 563%

School 63% · District 63%

▲ 23 pts above state median

Grade 838%

School 38% · District 38%

▲ 1 pts above state median

Social studies

Grade 542%

School 42% · District 42%

▲ 13 pts above state median

Grade 838%

School 38% · District 38%

▼ 5 pts below state median

This schoolHale Area Schools, 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.