The top reported proficiency rate is 18% in Math. The lowest is 9% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Harrington Elementary School
Harrington Elementary School sits in Albion, a small Calhoun County city that has spent decades remaking itself from a factory town into a college town. The school serves pre-kindergarten through fifth grade and is part of Marshall Public Schools, a district whose boundary reaches into Albion. The building stands on South Clark Street, embedded in the residential grid of a compact community where Albion College, a private liberal arts campus, is woven into the civic fabric rather than set apart on a hill. Albion's downtown brick main street, the Kalamazoo River confluence, and the annual Festival of the Forks give the place a distinct identity shaped by industrial heritage and ethnic diversity. The city's population peaked generations ago and has declined since factory closures, and growth today appears modest and community-driven rather than large-scale.
The school's enrollment is small for its grade band, with one class per grade level. Its student body reflects the broader community: a near-even split between Black and White students, with a Hispanic/Latino presence and a multiracial group as well. A very large share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which aligns with the economic context of a post-industrial small city working to rebuild around education and civic organizations. The school does not carry charter or magnet status; it is a regular public school.
State testing data from the most recent Michigan M-STEP administration paints a sobering academic picture across grades three through five. In math, third-grade proficiency was low, and fourth and fifth grades were reported in the lowest range band. In English language arts, proficiency was low across all three tested grades, with fifth grade showing the relatively strongest result. Science proficiency in fifth grade was also low, and social studies fell into the lowest reported range. Average scale scores are reported for each tested grade and subject, but the proficiency rates themselves sit well below where most schools in the county land. Against the comparison set of Calhoun County districts, Harrington's overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, asking what academic supports, interventions, and curriculum adjustments are in place and how the building plans to move scores over the coming years.
Participation rates for the state assessments were not available, so it is not possible to characterize how fully the student body was tested. IEP and English learner counts were also missing, which limits the picture of how the school serves students with disabilities and multilingual learners. No chronic absenteeism figure was available for the building. The school's Title I status was not reported. Discipline, course access, staffing, and attendance data were absent from the payload, so those dimensions of school environment cannot be described here.
Because Harrington serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to report and no high school course offerings to discuss. The relevant academic measures for a school of this kind are the state assessments in grades three through five, and those are what the data provides.
On the housing side, Albion's market is affordable relative to both Michigan and the nation. Typical home values sit well below the state benchmark and further below the national one, and the price-to-income ratio is low. Rent data was not available for this zip code. For a family considering the area, homeownership here is within reach on a moderate income compared with much of the state. The broader economy is stable at the national level, with unemployment holding in a low range and median household income having risen modestly over recent years, though Albion's local income picture may differ from national medians.
The district brief for Marshall Public Schools did not surface recent changes meeting a lasting-impact bar, so there is little to report on shifts a parent would need to know about. The district does serve both Marshall and Albion families, and Harrington is the Albion-side elementary presence within that system.
What a parent gets at Harrington is a small, community-embedded elementary school in an affordable, diverse small city with a strong college-town identity and a hard economic history. The academic results are low by county and state comparison, and the missing data on staffing, discipline, attendance, and special populations means several dimensions of school quality cannot be assessed from available information. Families considering Harrington would do well to visit, ask directly about academic improvement plans and student supports, and weigh the school's community setting and affordability against the testing results.
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