Mid Peninsula School, Rock MI - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Mid Peninsula School

Mid Peninsula School is a kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade public school in Rock, an unincorporated community in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It is the kind of place where all grades share a single building and a single identity, which is both its defining characteristic and its main draw for certain families. The school sits in a rural residential area along M-35, historically tied to logging and agriculture, with Finnish ancestry a noted part of the local heritage. Rock is a car-dependent community with no passenger rail and only limited regional bus service. What street life exists is seasonal: summer music in the park, winter ice skating, and the small-town camaraderie that comes with proximity to the Escanaba River and outdoor recreation. The community has remained very small and stable over time, with no major housing developments or growth pressure apparent in publicly reported sources.

The enrollment is small for a school spanning kindergarten through senior year, and individual grade cohorts are tiny. That structure means students grow up with the same classmates and teachers know families across years. The student body is predominantly white, with a very small number of students from other racial or ethnic backgrounds. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which reflects the rural, working-class economy of the surrounding area. Data on special education and English learner populations was not reported, so those snapshots are not available here.

On state assessments, the picture is mixed and skews toward the lower end. In the most recent round of M-STEP and PSAT testing, third-grade math and English language arts results were relatively strong, with roughly half of tested students reaching proficiency. From fourth grade onward, math proficiency drops off and stays low across the middle grades, with only a small fraction of students meeting the benchmark in grades four through eight. English language arts follows a similar but somewhat more variable pattern, with one grade landing in a very low proficiency range and another rebounding to a majority proficient. Science results were moderate, and social studies was uneven, with one tested grade showing very few proficient students and another performing in a middling range.

Placed against districts in Delta County, Mid Peninsula's overall proficiency sits in the bottom quartile. The county's district median is higher, and the strongest district in the set reaches well above where this school lands. A parent comparing academic outcomes across local options would want to look into this gap directly with the school, particularly in the upper elementary and middle-grade math sequence where results are weakest. At the same time, the very small cohort sizes mean a few students moving in or out can shift a grade's results sharply, so year-to-year comparisons should be read with that in mind.

No graduation rate, chronic absenteeism rate, advanced course offerings, career or dual-credit pathways, staffing ratios, or discipline data were available in the materials reviewed. The school does serve high school grades, so the absence of a graduation rate is a data gap rather than something explained by grade band. We looked for the district's recent parent-relevant changes and found little, so we left that out rather than guess.

Housing in the area is affordable relative to both the state and the nation. Typical home values sit well below the Michigan benchmark and far below the national one. That affordability, combined with the rural setting and small-school environment, makes this a fit for families who prioritize low cost of living, open land, and a tight-knit peer group over broad program offerings or competitive test scores. It is a community school in the most literal sense, serving a stable, small population in a place where change comes slowly.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

State test results and graduation outcomes.

Graduation rate (ACGR)

>=50%Cohort of 10 students · Class of 2021

The federal source publishes a banded range instead of an exact rate when the graduating cohort is small enough that an exact number could risk identifying individual students.

How this school compares to all schools in this state

Each dot is one school’s SY 2020-21 graduation rate, binned by integer rate. Taller columns mean more schools at that rate. This school is highlighted.

1,027 schools plotted. 80 additional schools' rates are federally suppressed and not shown. Data: EDFacts SY 2020-21.

Math

Grade 354%

School 54% · District 54%

▲ 12 pts above state median

Grade 417%

School 17% · District 17%

▼ 22 pts below state median

Grade 521%

School 21% · District 21%

▼ 10 pts below state median

Grade 626%

School 26% · District 26%

▼ 2 pts below state median

Grade 718%

School 18% · District 18%

▼ 11 pts below state median

Grade 815%

School 15% · District 15%

▼ 12 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 346%

School 46% · District 46%

▲ 8 pts above state median

Grade 433%

School 33% · District 33%

▼ 7 pts below state median

Grade 521%

School 21% · District 21%

▼ 21 pts below state median

Grade 637%

School 37% · District 37%

▲ 3 pts above state median

Grade 855%

School 55% · District 55%

▼ 7 pts below state median

Science

Grade 537%

School 37% · District 37%

▼ 3 pts below state median

Grade 847%

School 47% · District 47%

▲ 10 pts above state median

Social studies

Grade 835%

School 35% · District 35%

▼ 8 pts below state median

This schoolMid Peninsula 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.