Shields Elementary School, Saginaw MI

Original Research by School Decision on Shields Elementary School

Shields Elementary School sits on Stroebel Road in Saginaw, in the Swan Valley School District. It is a regular public school serving pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, and its enrollment places it in the mid-range for an elementary building of its type. The student body is predominantly white, with a Hispanic representation that gives the school a more varied composition than many of its county peers. A moderate share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Information on English learners and special education enrollment was not available in the data we reviewed, so we cannot characterize those populations here.

State assessment results come from the M-STEP and cover third, fourth, and fifth grades. In English language arts, Shields performed solidly across all three tested grades, with a majority of students reaching proficiency in each. The fifth-grade ELA result was the strongest of the group. Math results were more mixed: third grade was the bright spot with well over half of tested students proficient, while fourth and fifth grades came in lower. Science, tested only in fourth grade, was a soft spot, with only a small fraction of students demonstrating proficiency. Social studies, tested in fifth grade, was similarly low. These two results are worth a parent's attention; a parent may want to look into this further with the school, though it is also worth noting that science and social studies proficiency rates tend to run lower across Michigan elementary schools than ELA and math. No multi-year trend data was available, so we cannot say whether these results represent an improvement or decline over time.

Measured against districts in Saginaw County, Shields Elementary's overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades sits above the midpoint. That positions the school reasonably well within its local context, particularly on the literacy side.

Because Shields serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and the school sits outside measures like chronic absenteeism that the state applies to older grade bands. No civil-rights data was available for this school, and no information on course access, staffing ratios, discipline, or attendance was provided.

The surrounding community shapes the school's context. Saginaw is a Rust Belt city that grew from a nineteenth-century lumber town into a twentieth-century manufacturing center anchored by General Motors. As manufacturing declined through deindustrialization, the city lost population and jobs, and that downward trend has continued into recent census estimates. The city still carries a higher concentration of manufacturing employment than the national average, and publicly reported economic development efforts now center on clean energy, innovation, and continued manufacturing exports. Downtown Saginaw clusters along the Saginaw River, with civic and cultural venues including the Castle Museum, the Temple Theatre, and the Dow Event Center. The city sits about fifteen miles inland from Saginaw Bay and sits within one of the largest freshwater coastal wetland systems in the country, with a nearby National Wildlife Refuge. The search results did not surface details on parks, the public library system, or transit.

Housing in the school's zip code is affordable relative to both state and national benchmarks, with typical home values sitting well below the Michigan statewide figure and far below the national one. The price-to-income ratio in the area is modest, and current mortgage rates hover in the mid-six percent range. No rent data was available for this location. We looked for recent district-level changes that parents should know about, such as facility, leadership, or program shifts, but found little of lasting impact in publicly available sources, so we left it out rather than guess.

Shields Elementary presents a picture of a school with respectable literacy outcomes, uneven math performance, and clear room for growth in science and social studies, all set within an affordable housing market in a community working through decades-long economic transition.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 357%

School 57% · District 64% · ▼ 8 pts below district

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

Grade 436%

School 36% · District 61% · ▼ 25 pts below district

▼ 2 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 540%

School 40% · District 52% · ▼ 12 pts below district

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

English language arts

Grade 355%

School 55% · District 61% · ▼ 6 pts below district

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

Grade 455%

School 55% · District 66% · ▼ 11 pts below district

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 25 pts above county median

Grade 561%

School 61% · District 69% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▲ 19 pts above state median · ▲ 28 pts above county median

Science

Grade 416%

School 16% · district not reported

▲ 1 pts above state median

Social studies

Grade 523%

School 23% · District 53% · ▼ 29 pts below district

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

This schoolSwan Valley School District, 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-income47%Higher-income62%15 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income46%Higher-income62%16 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income49%Higher-income72%23 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income53%Higher-income60%7 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income31%Higher-income41%11 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income26%Higher-income54%28 pp gap