The top reported proficiency rate is 37% in English language arts. The lowest is 18% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Wick Elementary School
Wick Elementary School sits on Wick Road in Romulus, a Wayne County community whose identity is inseparable from Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The airport, a major Delta hub, and the Wayne County Airport Authority are the city's anchors, and a stretch of logistics and industrial employers follows from that: Amazon's DTW1 Fulfillment Center, a Kroger automated fulfillment center, and the General Motors Romulus Engine plant. Romulus is a sprawling, auto-oriented suburb laced with interstate highways. Residential neighborhoods spread across the city, but retail is thin enough that residents travel to neighboring communities for major grocery shopping. A small downtown cluster around Hunt Street and Goddard Road holds the post office and the Romulus Historical Museum, set in the town's original schoolhouse. The Romulus Athletic Center sits separate from that core. The city has seen steady logistics-driven growth, and Wayne County points to sizable vacant, developable tracts near the airport as future opportunity.
Wick is one of four elementary schools in the Romulus Community Schools district, which also runs a high school, a middle school, and an early childhood center. The schools are spread across the city rather than clustered downtown. Wick serves kindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school. Its enrollment is moderate for an elementary building, and a very large share of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, reflecting the broader economic profile of the community. The student body is predominantly Black, with smaller White, Hispanic, and multiracial populations. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not available, so those counts are left out here rather than estimated.
On Michigan's M-STEP assessments for the most recent school year, Wick's results tell a mixed story. English language arts is the brighter area. Third and fourth graders show proficiency rates approaching the middle of the range, with fourth grade slightly ahead of third. Fifth grade ELA drops off noticeably from those earlier grades. In math, the pattern is more concerning: proficiency declines as students move up, with third grade outpacing fourth and fifth grade falling further still. Science and social studies, tested only in fifth grade, land lower, with science a particular soft spot. A parent weighing Wick may want to ask the school directly how it supports math instruction in the upper elementary grades and what interventions follow the fifth-grade dip in ELA. The school does not serve grades that carry a graduation rate, and no chronic absenteeism figure was available.
Against the comparison set of districts in Wayne County, Wick's overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades sits above the midpoint. That positioning is real. It places the school ahead of many peers in a county with wide variation, though it remains well below the strongest performers in the set. The county itself is large and economically diverse, so the comparison is broad.
Housing in Wick's zip code is affordable relative to state and national benchmarks. Typical home values sit well below the statewide figure, and rents are modest. The county-wide market shows a growing inventory of active listings and a softening in median listing price recently, which points to a market that favors buyers over the near term. Mortgage costs modestly exceed rent for a comparable home in this area, and the rent-to-income ratio is manageable against national median income figures. For a family relocating to the area, entry costs are low, and the logistics-sector job base offers nearby employment even if the immediate neighborhood lacks retail amenities.
The district brief turned up no specific parent-relevant changes in recent years, so there is nothing to report on program shifts or strategic initiatives. Program offerings, staffing ratios, discipline data, and attendance patterns were also not available in the data provided. Those gaps mean the picture here rests on assessment results, enrollment composition, and the surrounding community. A family considering Wick should weigh the school's above-midday county standing in proficiency alongside the clear slide in math performance in the upper grades. A conversation with school leadership about how the upper-elementary curriculum is structured would help close the gap between what the test results show and what the classroom experience looks like.
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