Homer Middle School, Homer MI - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Homer Middle School

Homer Middle School sits in a small rural village in southeastern Calhoun County, at the junction of two state routes along the Kalamazoo River. The village calls itself "Homer is Home," and the place lives up to that motto: a compact downtown with turn-of-the-century buildings, a fieldstone library, a veterans' memorial, and a mill pond just east of the center. It has been losing population steadily over the past two decades, and the loss of the Homer Mills to fire removed a local landmark and likely employer. The economic base today leans on agriculture and small local businesses, with no large employers publicly identified. Housing in the school's zip code sits well below both the state and national benchmarks, and the price-to-income ratio is favorable, making this one of the more affordable corners of the county for families looking to buy.

The school serves grades five through eight and is part of Homer Community School District, which also draws a substantial number of students from surrounding villages and towns through Michigan's school-of-choice program. The enrollment is small for a four-grade middle school, and each grade cohort is modest in size. The student body is predominantly white, with a small Hispanic presence and very few students from other racial or ethnic backgrounds. Roughly half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which gives the school a mixed-income profile rather than a uniformly affluent or uniformly high-need one. The district does not report IEP or English-learner counts for this school in the data available, so those population figures are a gap a parent may want to ask about directly.

On state assessments, the school's results tell a mixed but in some ways encouraging story. English language arts is the clear strength. The sixth grade posts a strong proficiency rate, and the eighth grade, tested through the PSAT, reaches an even higher level, with well over half of students proficient. Fifth and seventh grades land in the middle range, still respectable. Reading and writing appear to be where this school's instruction is landing well.

Math is softer. Fifth-grade math proficiency is low, and eighth-grade math, also tested via PSAT, is lower still, with fewer than a fifth of students reaching proficiency. The middle grades of six and seven fall in between, with roughly a third to slightly more of students proficient. Science shows a similar split: fifth-grade science is solid, while eighth-grade science drops off. Social studies follows the same pattern as ELA, with a very low fifth-grade result but a strong eighth-grade showing. Taken together, the school's overall proficiency index places it in the top quartile among the Calhoun County districts for which proficiency data was available, which is a genuinely positive signal for a small rural school. That said, the math decline by eighth grade is a pattern a parent would want to understand, and it may be worth asking the school how the math sequence builds from grade to grade and what supports exist for students falling behind.

Because this is a middle school, there is no graduation rate to report, and that metric simply does not apply. Chronic absenteeism data was not available. Participation rates for the state assessments were also missing. No information was provided on staffing ratios, course access, discipline, or attendance, so those dimensions of school environment remain undescribed here.

At the district level, families should be aware that voters will decide on a zero-tax-rate-increase bond proposal in early August 2026. If approved, it would fund facility and infrastructure improvements without raising the current tax rate. That decision could shape the condition of buildings this school and its siblings operate in for years to come, and it is worth following for anyone with a stake in the district.

For a family considering Homer Middle School, the picture is of a small, close-knit rural school where English instruction is a real strength and where the overall academic standing among county peers is solid. The math results, particularly at the upper grades, are the area to probe. The village itself is quiet and affordable, with a strong sense of local identity but limited commercial activity and a shrinking population. The school's role as a community anchor in a place like this tends to be outsized, and the school-of-choice inflow means the student body draws from beyond the village lines, broadening the peer group beyond what the small resident population alone would produce.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 524%

School 24% · District 24%

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 643%

School 43% · District 43%

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Grade 733%

School 33% · District 33%

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

Grade 818%

School 18% · District 18%

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 536%

School 36% · District 36%

▼ 7 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 653%

School 53% · District 53%

▲ 19 pts above state median · ▲ 24 pts above county median

Grade 744%

School 44% · District 44%

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 17 pts above county median

Grade 865%

School 65% · District 65%

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

Science

Grade 548%

School 48% · District 48%

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 17 pts above county median

Grade 827%

School 27% · District 27%

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Social studies

Grade 516%

School 16% · District 16%

▼ 12 pts below state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Grade 855%

School 55% · District 55%

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

This schoolHomer Community 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-income29%Higher-income43%14 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income45%Higher-income63%19 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income27%Higher-income72%45 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income54%Higher-income78%24 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income15%Higher-income36%21 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income32%Higher-income57%25 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income24%Higher-income48%24 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income14%Higher-income22%8 pp gap