Original Research by School Decision on Kingsley Montgomery School
Kingsley Montgomery School is a special education school operated by the Waterford School District, located on Halkirk Drive in Waterford, Michigan. It serves students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade in a very small setting, with an enrollment of just a few dozen students spread across the grade bands. The school is not a charter or magnet school. Its identity as a special education school means it serves a particular population of students whose needs are met through individualized programs rather than the standard comprehensive school model.
Because of this specialized mission, the state assessment picture is essentially blank. Across every tested grade and subject, from third grade math through eighth grade social studies, no students were tested, and proficiency rates are suppressed. This is not a sign of poor performance. It reflects the nature of the school: students in a special education setting typically participate through alternative assessments or individualized education program pathways rather than the general M-STEP and PSAT administrations. A parent evaluating academic outcomes here would need to look beyond standard test reports and ask the school directly about progress monitoring, IEP goals, and transition planning. We found no graduation rate, no chronic absenteeism figure, and no course access or staffing data in the available records. IEP and English learner counts were also missing from the data, though for a school designated specifically for special education, the IEP population is central to its purpose by definition.
The student body is predominantly white, with smaller Hispanic, Black, and Asian populations. Just over half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The enrollment is distributed unevenly across grades, with clusters in the middle school years and a small handful of students in the upper high school grades.
Waterford itself is a sprawling charter township in Oakland County, roughly a half-hour northwest of downtown Detroit. It is defined by its 34 named lakes, which shape both the geography and the residential character of the area. The built environment is largely low-density subdivisions around those lakes, with strip commercial corridors along major roads like Dixie Highway and Highland Road. There is no traditional walkable downtown. Civic functions cluster at the Waterford Civic Center Complex on Civic Center Drive, which houses the Township Hall, police station, and district court. Oakland Community College's Highland Lakes Campus and the Oakland Schools intermediate district headquarters are also located in the township, making education and government the dominant employment anchors. The township has weathered the closure of two major commercial tax sources, Summit Place Mall and a General Motors facility, and continues to work through redevelopment and economic recovery.
The broader Waterford School District is in a period of transition. The board voted in June 2025 to close Kettering High School, the district's oldest, and consolidate its students into Mott and Durant high schools beginning with the 2026-2027 school year. The district has also passed two recent bond proposals, one focused on facility updates including roof repairs, sidewalk work, safety improvements, and STEM lab conversions, and another centered on security and technology upgrades. Enrollment across the district has been declining over the past two decades, which is the context for the Kettering closure.
Housing in the school's zip code sits below the Oakland County median listing price, with a typical home value in a moderate range relative to the broader county market. Countywide, the housing market shows a solid supply of active listings and a median listing price in a higher tier, with homes moving at a moderate pace. Mortgage rates remain elevated compared to the pre-pandemic period, and affordability sits at a level where estimated monthly mortgage costs modestly exceed typical rent costs.
For a family considering Kingsley Montgomery, the central question is whether the school's specialized programming matches their child's needs. The standard academic metrics that parents use to compare schools do not apply here in the usual way. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, asking specifically about instructional approach, related services, transition support for older students, and how progress is measured for this population.
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