The top reported proficiency rate is 47% in Math. The lowest is 34% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Haverhill Elementary School
Haverhill Elementary School sits in Portage, Michigan, part of the Portage Public Schools district. It serves pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school on a residential avenue in a city that blends suburban subdivisions, lakeside properties, and large commercial and industrial corridors.
The school's state testing results, from Michigan's M-STEP assessment in the most recent school year, show a mixed academic picture. In math, third graders posted a proficiency rate that was solidly above the halfway mark, the strongest result in the building. Fourth grade math proficiency dropped to below half, and fifth grade math fell further, with roughly a third of tested students scoring proficient. English language arts was steadier across grades, with proficiency hovering near the midpoint in third and fourth grade and landing at the halfway mark in fifth. Science was tested only in fifth grade, and nearly half of those students were proficient. Social studies, also a fifth-grade-only test, saw about a third of students reach proficiency. There are no prior-year comparison results available, so it is not possible to tell whether these numbers represent a trend or a one-year snapshot. Participation rates were missing from the data set, so the completeness of testing coverage cannot be confirmed here.
Measured against other districts in Kalamazoo County, Haverhill's overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades places it above the midpoint among the reporting districts in the county. That positions the school reasonably well within its local cohort, even as the grade-level detail reveals that math proficiency softens as students move from third to fifth grade. A parent whose child is strong in early-grade math may want to ask the school how it supports math instruction and progression in the upper elementary years.
The school's enrollment is moderate for an elementary building. Its student body is majority white, with a meaningful share of students identifying as two or more races, and smaller Black, Hispanic, and Asian populations. Nearly half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which gives Haverhill a more economically mixed population than some of its peers in the district. The data did not include counts or rates for students with individualized education programs or English learners, so those figures cannot be characterized here. Title I status was also not reported.
Portage itself is a car-dependent suburban city of residential neighborhoods, strip commercial along South Westnedge Avenue, and large industrial campuses. Pfizer operates its largest global manufacturing facility in the city, which is also home to the largest retail concentration in Southwest Michigan. There is no traditional walkable downtown; civic and commercial life spreads along wide arterials, and residents often look to neighboring Kalamazoo for that experience. What Portage does offer is an extensive bikeway and trail system of over fifty miles, thirteen public parks including Romona Park on Long Lake, and the Air Zoo aerospace museum. The city has grown steadily over decades and recently launched an endowment to fund future projects, though a May 2024 EF2 tornado damaged numerous buildings and destroyed sixty structures, including a strip mall and a FedEx distribution center, which will require ongoing rebuilding.
The housing market around Haverhill reflects the city's suburban character. Typical home values in the school's zip code sit above the state benchmark but below the national one, and values have been climbing at a moderate year-over-year pace. Rents are also rising, and the estimated monthly mortgage on a typical home is slightly higher than a typical rent payment. Rent absorbs roughly a quarter of a typical household's income, while the price-to-income ratio for buying sits at a level that many families in the region would find manageable relative to national norms. Portage promotes itself as offering affordable housing with low taxes, and the market data is broadly consistent with that framing.
The district brief turned up no parent-relevant changes meeting a lasting-impact bar from recent reporting, so there is little to add about district-level initiatives or disruptions. State testing data and enrollment figures are the core of what is available. A family considering Haverhill would be looking at a mid-sized, economically diverse elementary school in a suburban community with strong parks and trails, solid early-grade math results, and ELA performance near the state midpoint, alongside upper-elementary math and social studies results that a parent may want to examine more closely with the school.
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