Great Lakes Elementary School, Holland MI

Original Research by School Decision on Great Lakes Elementary School

Great Lakes Elementary School sits on the eastern edge of Holland, in Ottawa County, and serves children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as part of West Ottawa Public School District. It is a regular public school with a neighborhood attendance area, and its enrollment is moderate for an elementary building in this district. The student body is majority Hispanic, with white students forming the next largest group and smaller proportions of Asian, Black, multiracial, and American Indian students. A substantial share of children qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which gives the school a distinct socioeconomic profile compared with many of its counterparts across Ottawa County.

On Michigan's M-STEP assessments in the most recent school year, Great Lakes posted proficiency rates that sit below the county's typical range. In math, roughly a quarter to a third of tested students reached proficiency across grades three through five, with the strongest showing in fourth grade. English language arts results follow a similar pattern but trend upward as students move through the grades, with fifth grade producing the school's best ELA result. Fifth-grade science landed in a middling range, while social studies was the softest area, with only a small fraction of students demonstrating proficiency. The school's overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile relative to districts in Ottawa County, a set of peer districts the comparison uses. A parent looking at these results may want to ask the school how it is supporting students in math and social studies specifically, and what intervention or tutoring structures are in place for children who are below grade level.

Some data we would normally expect is absent. The school did not report English learner or special education counts, so we cannot describe those populations even though the demographic and economic profile suggests both groups may be present. Participation rates for the state assessments were also missing. Chronic absenteeism figures were not available for this school. Because Great Lakes is an elementary building, there is no graduation rate or high school course access to discuss; those measures simply do not apply to this grade range.

The surrounding community is Holland, a mixed-use city on Lake Macatawa near the Lake Michigan shore. Publicly reported information describes a diversified economy built on office furniture manufacturing, automotive supply, food processing, and tourism tied to the city's Dutch American heritage. The downtown along Eighth Street, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, features a thermal snowmelt system that keeps sidewalks clear in winter, and the city's lakefront parks draw regional visitors. Housing in the school's zip code runs above the state benchmark for typical home values, and rents are similarly elevated, so families considering the area should expect a relatively costly housing market compared with much of Michigan.

Within the district, two recent changes are relevant to elementary families. West Ottawa is opening Riley Farms Elementary, a new kindergarten-through-fifth-grade building, in fall of this year. That opening is reshaping elementary attendance boundaries in growing suburban areas, so a family looking at Great Lakes should confirm whether boundary adjustments affect this school's catchment. The district also opened a large auditorium at the high school campus in a recent year, adding performance capacity for arts programming across the district.

Great Lakes fits a family seeking a regular public elementary in a diverse, working-class pocket of an otherwise affluent county, within a district that is investing in new facilities. The academic results are currently below county norms, and a parent would want to understand what the school is doing to close that gap before making a decision. The community itself offers a distinctive blend of lakeshore recreation, manufacturing employment, and cultural identity that shapes the environment children grow up in.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 326%

School 26% · District 39% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 32 pts below county median

Grade 431%

School 31% · District 38% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 22 pts below county median

Grade 525%

School 25% · District 33% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 327%

School 27% · District 45% · ▼ 18 pts below district

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 29 pts below county median

Grade 437%

School 37% · District 42% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▼ 23 pts below county median

Grade 538%

School 38% · District 46% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▼ 23 pts below county median

Science

Grade 532%

School 32% · District 41% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 26 pts below county median

Social studies

Grade 515%

School 15% · District 30% · ▼ 15 pts below district

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 30 pts below county median

This schoolWest Ottawa Public 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-income22%Higher-income50%28 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income40%Higher-income27%13 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income30%Higher-income63%33 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income21%Higher-income50%29 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income30%Higher-income33%3 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income19%Higher-income42%23 pp gap