Roberts Elementary School, Shelby Township MI

Original Research by School Decision on Roberts Elementary School

Roberts Elementary School sits in Shelby Township, an affluent northern suburb of Detroit about twenty miles from the city center in western Macomb County. The township is car-dependent, built around two major corridors, M-53 running north-south and M-59 running east-west, with no traditional walkable downtown. Residential neighborhoods spread across a broad area, and the township is one of the fastest-growing communities in Metro Detroit, with new commercial and residential development continuing along its highway corridors. Civic life centers on a substantial parks system, the Shelby Township Library, Cherry Creek Golf Course, and the large Stony Creek Metropark with its lake and trail connections. The Macomb Orchard Trail and Iron Belle Trail pass through, linking recreational paths across southeast Michigan. The nearest traditional downtown-adjacent area is the small city of Utica, bordering the township to the south. Most residents are zoned into Utica Community Schools, with schools sitting on separated campuses rather than in a central downtown setting.

Roberts is a regular public school serving pre-kindergarten through sixth grade, part of Utica Community Schools. The enrollment is moderate for an elementary school of this grade band. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which shapes the resource picture here. The student body is majority white, with a sizable Hispanic population and small shares of Asian, Black, and multiracial students. The school does not report English learner or special education counts, so those figures are absent from the available data. State testing results cover grades three through six. Math proficiency sits in a moderate band, with results across the four tested grades hovering in the mid-thirties, dipping in fourth grade. English language arts tells a more encouraging story. Proficiency rises steadily from third grade through sixth, with the upper grades reaching nearly half of tested students scoring proficient or above. Fifth grade science results land in the same moderate range, and social studies is somewhat lower. Taken together, the overall proficiency index places Roberts above the midpoint among schools and districts measured across Macomb County, which is a reasonably strong position for a school serving a population with the economic profile this one has. The strongest signal in the data is the upward ELA trend as students move through the grades, which suggests the school's reading instruction may be building momentum over time.

That reading trajectory aligns with a district-wide curricular shift. Utica Community Schools adopted a new evidence-based elementary literacy curriculum for the current school year, focusing on phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension, in line with Michigan's Read by Grade Three law. The adoption followed a pilot at several elementary schools. For families with young children, the district is also moving to full-day kindergarten across all buildings starting in the coming school year, replacing its previous half-day program. The district recently passed a bond for facility renovations, technology upgrades, and security improvements across all school buildings without raising the current debt millage rate, building on an earlier bond from a few years prior.

Housing in the immediate zip code is more expensive than the countywide median listing price, with typical home values above the state benchmark and rents that are moderate relative to income. The county market shows growing inventory and roughly flat prices, with homes taking a little longer to sell than a year ago. Families looking at Roberts are entering a community that is growing, suburban, and oriented around cars and parks rather than walkable streets, with housing costs that reflect the township's affluent character. The school's academic results are middling to solid, strongest in upper-grade reading, and a parent weighing enrollment may want to look into the fourth-grade math dip and the missing special education and English learner data with the school directly.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 334%

School 34% · District 51% · ▼ 16 pts below district

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

Grade 425%

School 25% · District 38% · ▼ 13 pts below district

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

Grade 535%

School 35% · District 36% · ▼ 1 pts below district

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

Grade 634%

School 34% · District 43% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▲ 6 pts above state median · even with county median

English language arts

Grade 329%

School 29% · District 47% · ▼ 17 pts below district

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Grade 445%

School 45% · District 54% · ▼ 9 pts below district

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

Grade 548%

School 48% · District 54% · ▼ 6 pts below district

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

Grade 648%

School 48% · District 54% · ▼ 5 pts below district

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

Science

Grade 543%

School 43% · District 45% · ▼ 2 pts below district

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

Social studies

Grade 532%

School 32% · District 36% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▲ 4 pts above state median · ▲ 7 pts above county median

This schoolUtica Community 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-income25%Higher-income39%15 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income35%Higher-income68%34 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income42%Higher-income58%17 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income36%Higher-income61%25 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income32%Higher-income39%7 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income18%Higher-income40%22 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income28%Higher-income48%20 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income21%Higher-income48%27 pp gap