Tecumseh Middle School, Tecumseh MI

Original Research by School Decision on Tecumseh Middle School

Tecumseh Middle School sits in a small Michigan city whose downtown runs along Chicago Boulevard, a traditional main street corridor lined with antique dealers, cafes, breweries, and restaurants. The River Raisin winds through, and the city's civic life centers on festivals like the Ice Sculpting Festival in January and the Appleumpkin harvest celebration in October, along with a performing arts theater and a historical museum. The community was once known as the "Refrigeration Capital of the World" for its compressor manufacturing heritage, and today the local economy blends automotive suppliers, plastics, and metal processing with retail and public-sector jobs. A brownfield redevelopment of the former Tecumseh Products plant is the main development story, aimed at mixed-use light industrial and commercial space. Housing in the area is affordable relative to national benchmarks, with home values sitting close to the state median and a price-to-income ratio that looks manageable for working families. The district searched for recent parent-relevant changes such as referendums or curriculum shifts but found nothing clearing a lasting-impact bar, so there is nothing to report on that front.

The school serves grades five through eight and operates as a regular public school within Tecumseh Public Schools, which runs seven buildings spread across the city on separate campuses rather than clustered downtown. Enrollment is moderate for a middle school at this grade band, and the student body is predominantly white, with a Hispanic share that makes up the next largest group and very small counts of other racial and ethnic categories. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was not reported, so those population details are absent.

On state assessments, the most recent results show a school that performs better in literacy than in mathematics. English language arts proficiency holds in a moderate range across grades five through seven and then jumps sharply at grade eight, where the PSAT-based results reflect very strong performance. That eighth-grade cohort also stands out in science and social studies, both landing at or above the midpoint of proficiency. Math is the softer area. Grades five and six show the lowest math proficiency, with grade seven and the PSAT-tested eighth grade recovering somewhat. Social studies at grade five is the weakest single result in the data. Fourth-grade results also appear in the dataset even though the school's stated grade band begins at five; the reason for that inclusion is not explained in the provided material.

Taken together, the overall proficiency index places Tecumseh Middle School in the top quartile relative to districts in Lenawee County, above the county median and near the top of the range. That positioning is driven largely by the strength in English language arts and the solid showing in upper-grade science and social studies. The math results pull the overall picture down, and a parent weighing this school may want to look into how math instruction is structured across the middle grades, particularly in the transition years of fifth and sixth.

Several categories of information that would help round out the picture were not available. No program offerings, course access details, staffing data, discipline records, attendance figures, or chronic absenteeism rates were reported. The school does not serve high school grades, so no graduation rate applies. Title I status was not reported. Civil rights data was not provided. These gaps mean the narrative relies on assessment results, enrollment demographics, and the community context. A family reading this should treat the academic picture as partial but informative, with clear strengths in literacy and upper-grade content areas and a consistent soft spot in mathematics that warrants direct conversation with the school.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 438%

School 38% · District 38%

even with state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 526%

School 26% · District 26%

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 625%

School 25% · District 25%

▼ 3 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 734%

School 34% · District 33%

▲ 5 pts above state median

Grade 839%

School 39% · District 39% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 445%

School 45% · District 45%

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

Grade 537%

School 37% · District 37%

▼ 5 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 642%

School 42% · District 42%

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

Grade 744%

School 44% · District 44%

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

Grade 875%

School 75% · District 73% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Science

Grade 537%

School 37% · District 37%

▼ 2 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 855%

School 55% · District 53% · ▲ 1 pts above district

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

Social studies

Grade 519%

School 19% · District 19%

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Grade 851%

School 51% · District 50% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 8 pts above state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

This schoolTecumseh Public Schools, 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-income18%Higher-income61%42 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income33%Higher-income51%18 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income23%Higher-income45%22 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income29%Higher-income51%22 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income27%Higher-income52%24 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income64%Higher-income79%15 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income12%Higher-income55%42 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income27%Higher-income44%17 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income15%Higher-income32%18 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income18%Higher-income30%12 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income19%Higher-income40%21 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income29%Higher-income43%15 pp gap