The top reported proficiency rate is 34% in Math. The lowest is 10% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Jefferson
Jefferson is a regular public elementary school in the Holland City School District, serving pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. It sits on 30th Street in Holland, a mixed-use city on Lake Macatawa near the Lake Michigan shoreline in Ottawa County. The school draws from a community shaped by its Dutch American heritage, a diversified manufacturing economy, and a growing higher-education presence anchored by Hope College and Western Theological Seminary near the downtown core. Holland's downtown, centered on 8th Street and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is walkable year-round thanks to a thermal snowmelt system installed beneath the streets and sidewalks. Major employers in the area include office furniture manufacturers like Herman Miller and Haworth, automotive suppliers such as Adient and Johnson Controls, and Kraft Heinz, which operates what is publicly reported as the world's largest pickle factory. The city has grown modestly in recent years, with broader regional growth reflected in surrounding Ottawa County.
The student body at Jefferson is small for its grade band and reflects a predominantly Hispanic enrollment, with a substantial white population and a meaningful Black representation. A very large share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which signals the economic pressures many families in this attendance area face. The school does not have reported data for English learners or students with individualized education programs, so those populations cannot be characterized here. Data on staffing, discipline, attendance, and chronic absenteeism was also not available, and those are gaps a parent may want to ask the school about directly.
Academically, Jefferson's state assessment results from the most recent M-STEP cycle show a mixed and generally uneven picture across grade levels and subjects. In English language arts, third grade proficiency is below a third of tested students, fourth grade reaches nearly half, and fifth grade drops back to roughly a fifth. Math follows a similar pattern in the third and fourth grades, with proficiency around a third of tested students in each. Fifth grade math, however, falls into a very low reported range, with few or no students reaching proficiency. Science and social studies results for fifth grade are also low, with only a small fraction of tested students demonstrating proficiency. The state notes a cut-score change flag on social studies this year, which means trend comparisons for that subject are not reliable. No multi-year trend data was available for any subject, so it is not possible to say whether these results represent a decline, an anomaly, or a longer-standing pattern.
Against the Ottawa County district comparison set, Jefferson's overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile. Ottawa County is a large set of districts, and many of them serve communities with different economic and demographic profiles, so this positioning reflects both the school's current results and the relative affluence of neighboring districts. A parent considering Jefferson may want to look into what targeted supports and interventions the school has in place, particularly in fifth grade math and in science and social studies, where results are weakest. Because this is an elementary school, there is no graduation rate to report, and graduation pathways do not apply at this level.
Families at Jefferson feed into a district that offers distinct routes later on. Holland City School District provides three high school pathways: a traditional high school, an early college program where students can earn an associate's degree or transferable college credits, and a virtual tech credit-recovery option. Those choices give families flexibility as children move through the system, and they are worth understanding early even at the elementary stage.
Housing in the school's zip code is moderately priced relative to national figures, with home values below the national benchmark but above the state benchmark. Rents have risen at a faster recent pace than home values, and estimated monthly mortgage costs exceed typical rents, which may shape the options available to families looking to move into the attendance area.
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