The top reported proficiency rate is 57% in Science. The lowest is 37% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Frank E Bartlett School
Frank E. Bartlett School sits on School Street in South Lyon, a small city in the southwest corner of Oakland County. It is one of eight elementary schools in the South Lyon Community Schools district, a geographically large system that public sources say spans 83 square miles across three counties and three townships. Bartlett serves pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school.
The academic picture from the most recent M-STEP results shows a real strength in the early grades. Third-grade proficiency is strong in both math and English language arts, with a clear majority of tested students meeting or exceeding the proficiency bar in each subject. Science proficiency in fifth grade is also solid, with more than half of tested students reaching proficiency. Taken together, the school's overall proficiency index sits above the midpoint among districts in Oakland County, which is a favorable position in a county with many high-performing systems.
A pattern worth attention is the decline in proficiency as students move from third grade into fourth and fifth. Math proficiency drops sharply from third to fourth and falls further by fifth grade. English language arts follows a gentler but similar downward trajectory. Social studies proficiency in fifth grade is comparatively low. This is the kind of slide that can reflect a cohort effect, a curriculum alignment issue, or simply the increasing difficulty of the assessments at higher grades. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, asking how the staff diagnoses and responds to the gap between strong early-grade performance and weaker upper-grade results.
The student body is predominantly white, with smaller Asian, Hispanic, and multiracial populations, and very small Black and American Indian groups. A modest share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, well below what many Oakland County schools report, which suggests a relatively advantaged community overall. The school does not report data on English learners or students with individualized education programs, so those who rely on either service will need to ask the school directly about staffing and support.
Because Bartlett is an elementary school, there is no graduation rate to report, and that metric simply does not apply here. Chronic absenteeism data was also not available. Multi-year trend data was not reported, so it is not possible to say from the provided information whether the proficiency decline is a persistent pattern or a one-year fluctuation.
South Lyon itself blends a historic downtown with suburban residential neighborhoods. Publicly reported sources describe a walkable commercial core at the intersection of Lake and Lafayette Streets, with shops and dining along Pontiac Trail. A paved bicycle trail follows a former rail line through town, and McHattie Park hosts summer concerts and the annual Depot Days festival. The city sits near the crossroads of I-96 and US-23, roughly 45 miles from Detroit and under an hour from Lansing. Manufacturing is growing as a local economic base, with light industrial acreage inside city limits and municipal utility systems that surrounding areas lack. The school district is the city's top employer.
The housing market in Bartlett's zip code is moderately priced for Oakland County, with typical home values above the state midpoint but below the national midpoint. County-level listing data shows a market with healthy supply and moderate demand, homes selling in roughly a month, and listing prices that have eased somewhat year over year. Renting is relatively affordable compared with owning at current mortgage rates. For a family weighing the area, this means access to a community with small-city character and commuter highway access at a price point that is approachable but not bargain-level for the region.
The district brief turned up no recent referendums, curriculum overhauls, or other parent-relevant changes of lasting impact, so there is little to report on that front. What a family gets at Bartlett is a conventional public elementary pathway in a stable, growing small city, with genuinely strong early-grade instruction and an above-midday county standing in overall proficiency, paired with an upper-grade math result that invites a closer conversation.
See more original research from School Decision →