Summary:
Middle schools in the city of Covert, Michigan, consist of a single, very small institution serving grades 6 through 8 within the Covert Public Schools district, an area characterized by significant socioeconomic challenges.
Covert Middle School is the only middle school in the area, enrolling just 79 students. This small size allows for a favorable student-teacher ratio of 15.2:1, which typically supports more individualized attention. However, the school faces substantial hurdles. Academic proficiency rates are consistently and significantly below state averages across all subjects and grade levels. For instance, 6th-grade ELA proficiency was 19.05% compared to the state's 37.5%, and 8th-grade science proficiency was 25% versus the state's 39.2%. The school's state ranking has been volatile, improving from the 14th percentile in 2024-2025 to the 24th percentile in 2025-2026, but it remains in the bottom quarter of Michigan middle schools.
Two critical factors stand out. First, chronic absenteeism is alarmingly high at 39.3%, far exceeding both the district average (34.8%) and the state average (27.9%). This likely plays a major role in the low academic outcomes, as students missing school cannot benefit from instruction. Second, the district spends a substantial $22,004 per student, which is notably high and likely reflects the fixed costs of running a small school. Despite this high financial investment and a good student-teacher ratio, results remain poor, suggesting the core challenges are tied to poverty (70.89% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch) and attendance rather than a lack of resources. One bright spot is an outlier in 8th-grade PSAT ELA, where 46.4% of students were proficient—still below the state's 64.8% but dramatically better than other scores at the school, possibly indicating a stronger specific cohort or a better test fit for those students.
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