Lawton Middle School, Lawton MI - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Lawton Middle School

Lawton Middle School sits in the village of Lawton in Van Buren County, serving grades five through eight as part of Lawton Community School District. It is a regular public school on Blue Pride Drive, and its enrollment is modest for a middle school covering four grade levels. The student body is predominantly white, with a Hispanic presence that is larger than in many nearby rural Michigan communities. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which reflects the working-class character of the surrounding area. Data on English learners and special education enrollment was not available in the sources reviewed.

On state assessments, the school's results tell a mixed but in some ways encouraging story. In math, proficiency across grades five through eight lands in the range of a quarter to roughly a third of students meeting or exceeding standards, which is a soft spot a parent may want to look into further with the school. English language arts results swing more widely. Fifth grade posts a relatively strong showing, seventh dips lower, and eighth grade stands out with a clear majority of students proficient on the PSAT-based measure. That eighth-grade ELA result is a genuine bright spot and suggests the upper grades may be doing something right with literacy preparation. Science and social studies results sit in a middling-to-solid range, with social studies in particular showing a majority of eighth graders proficient.

Taken together, the school's overall proficiency index places it in the top quartile relative to districts in Van Buren County, meaning its average across tested subjects and grades sits well above the county midpoint. That positioning is worth noting for a parent weighing local options, since it suggests the school is outperforming many of its neighbors despite serving a population with high economic need.

No multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to say whether these results are improving, declining, or holding steady. Participation rates were also missing from the data. Because this is a middle school, there is no graduation rate to report, and no chronic absenteeism figure was provided in the sources.

The community context is sparse in the available data. Lawton is a small village in southwestern Michigan, historically tied to agriculture and food processing, with Welch's grape juice operations long associated with the area. Publicly reported search results about downtown businesses, parks, library access, and transit did not return detailed findings, so a parent would need to look locally for specifics on those amenities. The housing market in the Lawton zip code shows typical home values somewhat above the Michigan state benchmark and well below the national figure, with modest year-over-year appreciation. The price-to-income ratio sits below the national average, suggesting relative affordability for the region. Mortgage rates at the time of this data were in the mid-six-percent range.

The district brief searched for recent parent-relevant changes in Lawton Community School District but found little of lasting impact on record. No information on program offerings, course access, staffing ratios, discipline data, or attendance patterns was available for this school in the provided sources, so those dimensions remain gaps rather than weaknesses.

What the picture supports is this: Lawton Middle School is a small, conventional public middle school serving a working-class community, with academic results that are uneven across subjects and grades but that, in aggregate, stand above most of its Van Buren County peers. Its strongest work appears in eighth-grade literacy and in social studies, while math is the area where a family might reasonably ask the most questions. For a parent looking at local public options in this part of the county, it is a school whose results outperform what its economic profile might predict, even as specific subjects warrant closer attention.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 529%

School 29% · District 29%

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Grade 625%

School 25% · District 25%

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▲ 7 pts above county median

Grade 730%

School 30% · District 30%

▲ 1 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

Grade 826%

School 26% · District 26%

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 545%

School 45% · District 45%

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 630%

School 30% · District 30%

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 729%

School 29% · District 29%

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Grade 865%

School 65% · District 65%

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

Science

Grade 544%

School 44% · District 44%

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

Grade 844%

School 44% · District 44%

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 13 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 546%

School 46% · District 46%

▲ 18 pts above state median · ▲ 28 pts above county median

Grade 856%

School 56% · District 56%

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 26 pts above county median

This schoolLawton 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-income36%Higher-income57%21 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income26%Higher-income36%11 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income18%Higher-income47%29 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income63%Higher-income69%7 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income20%Higher-income43%23 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income15%Higher-income38%23 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income22%Higher-income44%22 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income28%Higher-income23%4 pp gap