The top reported proficiency rate is 48% in Math. The lowest is 18% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Ida Elementary School
Ida Elementary School sits at the heart of a small, rural unincorporated community in central Monroe County, along Lewis Avenue. The school serves pre-kindergarten through fourth grade and is one of three schools, elementary, middle, and high, that share a single campus just east of the community's main corridor. This compact arrangement places the elementary building within easy walking distance of the Ida Township Municipal Office, the branch library, and St. Joseph Church, giving the school a genuinely central role in civic life rather than sitting on an isolated campus at the edge of town.
The community itself has deep agricultural roots. Settled in the early 1800s as a stagecoach stopover on the Monroe-to-Adrian route, Ida grew around farmers who supplemented their income by helping travelers stuck on muddy trails. The railroad that once served the area was removed entirely after the depot closed, and no major new housing developments, commercial projects, or growth initiatives surface in publicly reported sources. The trajectory appears stable and slow-growing, consistent with its rural character. No major private employers were identified; the school district and township government are the largest institutional anchors. The community is accessible by road via the US-23 exit at Ida West Road, with no rail or public transit.
The elementary school's enrollment is moderate for its grade band, with kindergarten through fourth grade carrying the bulk of students and pre-kindergarten reporting no enrolled students despite being listed in the served grades. The student body is overwhelmingly white, with small representations of Hispanic, multiracial, Asian, and American Indian or Alaska Native students, and a single Black student. A modest share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, lower than what many rural schools report, which may reflect the working agricultural and residential character of the area rather than deep concentrated poverty. Data on English learners and special education populations was not available, so those dimensions of student support cannot be characterized here.
On Michigan's M-STEP assessment, the most recent results show a mixed picture. Third-grade math proficiency sits above the halfway mark, with a solid share of tested students meeting or exceeding standards. Fourth-grade math proficiency drops to a lower level, with fewer than half of tested students reaching proficiency. English language arts flips that pattern: third-grade ELA proficiency is lower, while fourth-grade ELA is the strongest result in the set, with a majority of students proficient. Average scale scores follow the same grade-level progression. Science results exist only from an older testing period and show very low proficiency, but because that result is from a prior year and grade-four science is no longer part of the current testing cycle, it is not directly comparable and a parent would want to ask the school how science instruction has evolved since. No trend data was available to show whether these results are improving or declining over time.
Against the comparison set of districts in Monroe County, Ida Elementary's overall proficiency index lands below the midpoint. The range across the county's districts is wide, and Ida sits closer to the lower end than the upper, though not at the bottom. This positions the school as solidly average-to-below-average in measured academic outcomes for its county peers. Because the school serves only early grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and chronic absenteeism data was not available.
Housing in the 48140 zip code is modestly priced relative to state and national benchmarks, with typical home values below the Michigan statewide figure and well below the national figure. Year-over-year appreciation has been steady, and the estimated monthly mortgage on a typical home is close to what a household would pay in rent, making ownership a realistic option for many families in the area. The price-to-income ratio sits in a range that most working families in the region could manage, particularly given the rural setting and limited commercial activity that keeps prices down.
The district brief turned up little publicly reported information about recent parent-relevant changes, so there is no record of major program launches, boundary shifts, or facility overhauls to pass along. What is clear is that Ida Elementary functions as a neighborhood school in a community where the school, township offices, library, and church cluster together along a single road. For a family looking at this school, the draw is a small, rural, tight-knit setting where the campus is embedded in the community rather than separated from it. The academic results are uneven across grades and subjects, and a parent may want to look into the fourth-grade math dip and the older science figures directly with the school to understand how instruction is structured across those early grades.
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