The top reported proficiency rate is 62% in English language arts. The lowest is 29% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Hillmccloy High School
HillMcCloy High School sits in Montrose, a very small city in Genesee County within the Flint metropolitan area. The school serves grades eight through twelve as a regular public school in the Montrose Community Schools district. It is the kind of place where the school is woven into the town's fabric rather than set apart on a distant campus. Montrose itself is compact, built along the M-57 corridor, with city hall and civic buildings near the schools. The community is auto-oriented, with most residents driving to work, and public transit was not identified in available sources. The annual Montrose Blueberry Festival, a long-running civic event, uses school property for its carnival, which tells you something about how central the schools are to community life here.
Academically, the state testing data available is limited to the eighth grade, assessed through PSAT for math and ELA and M-STEP for science and social studies. No high school grade-level results were provided in the data, so the picture of proficiency is partial. What is available shows a clear split. ELA is the strongest area, with a solid majority of tested eighth graders reaching proficiency. Science and social studies sit in the middle range, with close to half of tested students proficient in each. Math is the soft spot, with fewer than a third of tested students reaching proficiency. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, especially given that math is the one subject where the gap between proficiency and the other tested areas is wide.
Placed relative to districts in Genesee County, the school's overall proficiency index across tested subjects and grades lands in the top quartile. That is a genuinely strong position for a small-town school in a county that includes a range of districts, and it suggests that despite the math weakness, the school is doing better than most of its peers on the measures that were reported.
Enrollment is modest for a five-grade school, and the student body is predominantly white, with small Hispanic and multiracial populations and very few students from other racial or ethnic groups. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which reflects the working-class character of the area. Data on special education and English learner populations was not available. No graduation rate, chronic absenteeism rate, discipline data, course access information, or staffing details were provided in the data sections, so those parts of the picture remain blank. The absence of a graduation rate stands out for a school that serves through twelfth grade, and a parent would reasonably want to ask the district for that information directly.
The housing market around the school is affordable by both state and national benchmarks. Home values in the school's zip code sit well below the Michigan state benchmark and far below the national one, with modest year-over-year appreciation. The county market has been seeing rising listing prices and increasing inventory, with homes moving at a moderate pace. Rent data was not available. For families considering buying in the area, the price-to-income ratio is favorable relative to national norms, and the estimated monthly mortgage cost is modest, though current mortgage rates remain elevated. Montrose's population has been relatively stable with mixed signals about growth, and no major new housing developments were identified. The median household income in the area has seen modest recent growth.
The district recently passed a construction bond issue in 2023, funding additions and renovations at its schools. This continues a pattern of bond-funded capital improvements over the years, which means families here are paying into a district that has been actively investing in its facilities, and property taxes reflect that. For a parent weighing HillMcCloy, the strengths are the ELA results, the strong county-level proficiency position, and a community where the school is a genuine civic anchor. The open questions are math performance, the missing graduation and attendance data, and the limited information on programs and staffing, none of which the available data could answer.
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