Summary:
Lake Superior Academy is a single, small elementary school in Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, serving grades kindergarten through 5th grade with 93 students, and it also functions as its own district, Lake Superior Academy.
For parents, the most important takeaway is that this is a very small school where individual student performance can dramatically shift year-to-year statistics. The school’s overall state ranking is in the lower-middle tier (393rd out of 625 Michigan districts, earning a 2-star rating), but that masks significant variation by subject and grade. The standout success is in 4th grade English Language Arts, where 46.67% of students are proficient—actually beating the state average of 41.3% by more than 5 points. This is a genuine bright spot. However, 3rd grade ELA tells a different story, with only 14.29% proficient, a steep drop from the prior year’s 31.6% and nearly 24 points below the state average. Given that each grade likely has only 15-16 students, this swing could represent just two or three students, so parents shouldn’t over-interpret any single year’s results. In 5th grade, proficiency is closer to state averages: 36.36% in ELA (state: 43.8%), 36.36% in science (state: 40.0%), and a near-exact match in social studies at 27.27% versus the state’s 27.5%.
Beyond test scores, the school has a notably high student-teacher ratio of 20.6:1 for an elementary school of this size, implying roughly 4-5 full-time teachers. Chronic absenteeism matches the state average exactly at 27.9%, and about 42% of students receive free or reduced lunch, indicating moderate economic disadvantage. Per-student spending is $10,576. The practical advice for parents is to look beyond the overall star rating: ask the school about the 4th grade ELA approach that is working, and be aware that small cohorts make year-to-year comparisons noisy. If your child is entering 3rd grade, you may want to inquire about specific supports, given the recent dip, but also recognize that this could easily rebound with a different group of students.
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