The top reported proficiency rate is 41% in English language arts. The lowest is 26% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Clara B Bolen Elementary School
Clara B. Bolen Elementary sits in Tawas City, a small Lake Huron coastal community that serves as the county seat of Iosco County. The town stretches along Tawas Bay in a linear fashion, with US 23 running north-south as the main corridor and a sandy beach paralleling the highway. Tourism, auto parts manufacturing, and gypsum products anchor the local economy, and the community has an "up north" Michigan character with resorts, motels, and cottages mixed into everyday civic life. The population has been stable to slowly changing, with a notable retiree presence and a seasonal housing segment. No major new development projects surfaced in publicly reported sources. The school is part of Tawas Area Schools, and the district brief turned up little in the way of recently reported parent-relevant changes, so there is not much to relay on that front.
The school serves pre-kindergarten through fourth grade, which means it has no graduation rate and no high school level metrics. That is simply a function of the grade band served. State testing covers third and fourth grade, and Clara B. Bolen's M-STEP results from the most recent school year show a mixed picture. In English language arts, fourth graders performed notably better than third graders, with a clear majority of fourth graders reaching proficiency. Third grade ELA proficiency was lower, with roughly a quarter of tested students meeting the bar. Math followed a similar pattern: fourth grade math proficiency was higher than third grade, though still under half. A science result exists but dates back several years, making it difficult to read current science performance from it. Participation rates were not reported in the data. Trend comparisons were flagged as not safely computable, so there is no clean year-over-year change to describe.
Positioned relative to districts in Iosco County, Clara B. Bolen's overall proficiency sits below the midpoint among the county's districts. The spread among those districts is fairly wide, and this school lands in the lower portion. A parent evaluating academic outcomes may want to look into this further with the school, particularly around third grade literacy and math, which are the entry points to state testing here.
The student body is modest in size for an elementary serving five grade levels. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which reflects the broader economic profile of the area. The school's enrollment is predominantly white, with small representations of Hispanic students and students of two or more races. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not available, so those population sizes cannot be characterized here.
Housing in the school's zip code is affordable relative to both state and national benchmarks, with typical home values well below Michigan's statewide figures and far below national ones. The price-to-income ratio sits at a level that suggests homeownership is within reach for many local families compared to much of the country. Rental data was not available for this area. The broader economic context shows a national unemployment rate that has held steady in a low range, and mortgage rates that have been hovering in the mid-single digits.
The locale brief did not specify where Clara B. Bolen's building sits relative to the downtown bayfront corridor, so it is hard to say from available sources how integrated the campus is with the town's civic and commercial strip. The town itself is compact, with short distances between amenities clustered along US 23 and the waterfront. Tawas Point State Park, a regional draw for birding and kite-boarding, sits nearby in Baldwin Township. Indian Trails bus service runs through town along the US 23 route, and M-55 has its eastern terminus at US 23 in Tawas City.
For a family considering this school, the context is a small lakeside community with affordable housing and a stable, tourism-oriented economy. The academic results show stronger outcomes in fourth grade than third, with ELA outpacing math at the upper grade. The county positioning suggests room for growth relative to neighboring districts. Program offerings, staffing details, discipline data, and attendance figures were not available in the provided data, so those dimensions of the school experience remain uncharacterized here.
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