Farrand Elementary School, Plymouth MI

Original Research by School Decision on Farrand Elementary School

Farrand Elementary School sits in the City of Plymouth, a compact western suburb of Detroit known for its walkable downtown clustered around Kellogg Park. The city calls itself "the village of homes," and the surrounding neighborhood streets back that up with sidewalks, mature trees, and well-kept houses. Plymouth is landlocked and largely built out, meaning the housing stock is established rather than rapidly expanding. Homes here carry values well above both the state and national benchmarks, and rents sit at a level that reflects a desirable suburban market. The county-wide listing data shows a market with healthy supply and moderate demand, and homes tend to move at a steady rather than frenzied pace.

Farrand is part of Plymouth-Canton Community Schools, a district that recently completed a substantial bond-funded round of safety, technology, and facility improvements across all its schools. Publicly reported district information indicates those projects were slated for completion by 2026, so families arriving now benefit from upgraded buildings without a corresponding tax-rate increase. The district operates a large system of elementary, middle, and high schools, with its three high schools sharing a single campus at the Plymouth-Canton Educational Park, which is publicly noted as the only educational park in Michigan and among the most populated high school campuses in the country.

As an elementary school serving kindergarten through fifth grade, Farrand does not have a graduation rate or high school-level course access data. Those metrics simply do not apply to this grade band. State testing through Michigan's M-STEP covers grades three through five, and Farrand's results paint a consistently strong picture. Across math, English language arts, science, and social studies, proficiency rates at every tested grade level sit well above the midpoint for Wayne County. In fact, the school's overall proficiency index places it in the top quartile among districts in Wayne County, a set that includes more than a hundred comparison entities. English language arts results are particularly strong in third grade, and math holds steady across the upper elementary grades. Science and social studies proficiency at fifth grade also land solidly above the county median.

The school's enrollment is moderate for an elementary building. The student body is predominantly white, with smaller but present Hispanic, multiracial, Asian, and Black populations. A modest share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on English learners and special education enrollment was not reported, so those figures are unavailable rather than absent. Farrand operates as a regular public school with no charter or magnet designation, and Title I status was not reported in the available data.

Plymouth's civic life centers on Kellogg Park and a dozen city parks, with an active calendar of annual events that bring street life to the downtown core. The city is small in area and entirely surrounded by Plymouth Township, which limits large-scale growth but preserves a close-knit residential feel. An active freight rail line runs through the community, and blocked crossings can occasionally stall local traffic. Major employers within the city are limited given its residential character, and many residents likely commute to Detroit, Ann Arbor, or surrounding suburban job centers.

For a parent weighing Farrand, the academic evidence is strong: consistent above-median proficiency across subjects and grades, in a district that has recently invested in its facilities. The surrounding community is established, walkable near downtown, and affluent relative to the broader region. What the data does not capture is classroom culture, teacher retention, or extracurricular offerings at the elementary level, since those fields were not provided. A parent may want to look into those dimensions directly with the school.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 357%

School 57% · District 61% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 30 pts above county median

Grade 448%

School 48% · District 55% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 20 pts above county median

Grade 555%

School 55% · District 51% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 36 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 365%

School 65% · District 58% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 27 pts above state median · ▲ 40 pts above county median

Grade 452%

School 52% · District 58% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▲ 24 pts above county median

Grade 557%

School 57% · District 67% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 29 pts above county median

Science

Grade 556%

School 56% · District 59% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▲ 34 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 553%

School 53% · District 49% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 24 pts above state median · ▲ 35 pts above county median

This schoolPlymouth-Canton Community 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 3Lower-income30%Higher-income72%42 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income40%Higher-income60%20 pp gap