Newberry Area School, Newberry MI

Original Research by School Decision on Newberry Area School

Newberry Area School sits at the heart of a small, rural Upper Peninsula village that serves as the county seat of Luce County. It is a single campus serving pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade, part of Tahquamenon Area Schools, which publicly reported sources describe as the largest public school district by area in Michigan and the largest east of the Mississippi. The village of Newberry is compact, with a downtown corridor along the state highway that runs through its center, and the school campus functions as a distinct compound woven into the village fabric. The surrounding landscape is dominated by state and national forests, inland lakes, and proximity to Tahquamenon Falls State Park. Outdoor recreation is central to daily life here, with extensive snowmobile trails, cross-country ski routes, and public-access forest lands.

The local economy is anchored by government employment, the state correctional facility just south of the village, the school district itself, and seasonal tourism services. The historical logging industry that founded the town has largely faded. Newberry has experienced long-term population decline, losing residents every decade since its peak, and no major housing developments or commercial growth projects were identified. The housing market is very affordable relative to state and national benchmarks, with home values well below Michigan and national medians, and those values have been declining modestly. For a family looking at the area, housing costs are unlikely to be a barrier.

The school's enrollment is modest for a PK through 12 institution, and its grade-level cohorts are small. The student body is predominantly white, with a meaningful Native American and Alaska Native presence and smaller multiracial and Hispanic shares. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The school does not report IEP or English learner data, so we cannot characterize those populations. No program offerings, course access, staffing, discipline, or attendance data were available, and we left those gaps rather than guess.

On Michigan's M-STEP and PSAT assessments for the most recent school year, the academic picture is mixed and leans toward the lower end in several subjects. Math proficiency across grades three through eight is consistently modest, with no grade reaching even a third of students scoring proficient or above. The strongest math results appear in third and fourth grade, and proficiency tends to dip in the middle grades, with eighth grade the lowest. English language arts tells a more encouraging story. Proficiency is moderate in the elementary grades and rises through middle school, with sixth and eighth grade standing out as relative bright spots where a clear majority or near-majority of tested students reached proficiency. Science results are low, with eighth grade particularly weak. Social studies proficiency is also low across the two tested grades. These are small cohorts, so a few students moving in or out can shift results meaningfully, and a parent may want to look into these patterns further with the school to understand what is driving the dip in middle-grade math and science.

No graduation rate was reported for this school, and no multi-year trend data was available, so we cannot speak to whether results are improving or declining over time. The comparison fact-set, which would position this school relative to districts in Luce County, could not produce meaningful comparisons because the county contains only a single district. This is not a weakness in the school's data; it simply reflects the isolated, county-wide nature of education here.

What this school offers is a small, rural, all-through-one-campus pathway where children stay in the same building from early childhood through graduation, in a community where the cost of living is low and the natural environment is a defining feature. The academic results suggest real strength in English language arts instruction in the upper elementary and middle grades, paired with a need for attention in math and science. Families considering Newberry Area School should weigh the intimacy and continuity of a single-campus community school against the limitations that small cohorts and a resource-constrained rural setting can bring. Asking the school directly about its math and science support strategies, its high school course offerings, and its graduation outcomes would be a reasonable next step.

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Academic performance

State test results and graduation outcomes.

Graduation rate (ACGR)

>=90%Cohort of 40 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 328%

School 28% · District 28%

▼ 14 pts below state median

Grade 428%

School 28% · District 28%

▼ 10 pts below state median

Grade 519%

School 19% · District 19%

▼ 12 pts below state median

Grade 625%

School 25% · District 25%

▼ 3 pts below state median

Grade 720%

School 20% · District 20%

▼ 9 pts below state median

Grade 817%

School 17% · District 17%

▼ 11 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 324%

School 24% · District 24%

▼ 14 pts below state median

Grade 431%

School 31% · District 31%

▼ 9 pts below state median

Grade 531%

School 31% · District 31%

▼ 11 pts below state median

Grade 644%

School 44% · District 44%

▲ 11 pts above state median

Grade 733%

School 33% · District 33%

▼ 1 pts below state median

Grade 856%

School 56% · District 56%

▼ 7 pts below state median

Science

Grade 531%

School 31% · District 31%

▼ 9 pts below state median

Grade 812%

School 12% · District 12%

▼ 25 pts below state median

Social studies

Grade 522%

School 22% · District 22%

▼ 6 pts below state median

Grade 815%

School 15% · District 15%

▼ 28 pts below state median

This schoolTahquamenon Area Schools, 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 4Lower-income24%Higher-income46%22 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income33%Higher-income60%27 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income31%Higher-income40%9 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 4Lower-income19%Higher-income46%27 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income14%Higher-income40%26 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income16%Higher-income30%14 pp gap