Old Mission Peninsula School

Old Mission Peninsula School is the sole school in the Old Mission Peninsula School district, serving 146 students in grades K-6 in the rural Traverse City, Michigan area.

This small school delivers strong academics, particularly in science and social studies, where 5th-grade proficiency rates are roughly double the state average (75% vs. 40% in science, and 58.3% vs. 27.5% in social studies). The school also shows a clear "upper-grade strength" pattern: in 2025-2026, its advantage over state averages in English language arts grows from just +3.9 points in 3rd grade to +27 points in 5th grade, suggesting that the school's approach builds skills cumulatively. With a favorable 11.2:1 student-to-teacher ratio and per-student spending of $12,285, the school maintains a 4-star rating and ranks in the 76th percentile statewide, down from the 91st percentile two years earlier. That decline, however, should be viewed cautiously—with only about 20-25 students per grade, a single cohort can swing results dramatically. For example, 3rd-grade math proficiency fell from 68.8% to 36.8% year-over-year, while 5th-grade ELA jumped from 61.1% to 70.8% in the same period. These swings likely reflect cohort differences rather than programmatic changes.

One hidden challenge is chronic absenteeism, which sits at 23.7%—meaning nearly 1 in 4 students misses significant school time, even though the school's free/reduced lunch rate of 21.92% suggests a relatively affluent population. Despite this, the school outperforms state averages in 8 of 10 subject-grade combinations, and its standout science and social studies results suggest that its small size enables richer, hands-on instruction in subjects often deprioritized elsewhere. For parents, this school offers a personalized, high-performing environment with notable strengths in content areas beyond the core reading and math focus, though the small class sizes mean year-to-year test scores should be interpreted with an understanding of natural variability.