Anchor Bay School District

The Anchor Bay School District serves roughly 5,280 students across nine schools in Michigan's Macomb County, including six elementary schools (PK-4), two middle schools (5-8), and one high school (9-12), with the district overall ranking in the 69th percentile statewide. For parents, the most important takeaway is that this is a district of stark contrasts: your child's experience will depend heavily on which attendance zone you live in, with northern schools consistently outperforming their southern counterparts by wide margins.

The clear academic standout is Anchor Bay Middle School North, a 5-star school ranking in the 91st percentile, where 8th grade ELA proficiency hits 81.3% and 7th grade math reaches 60.3%—both far above state averages. Its counterpart, Anchor Bay Middle School South, has shown strong improvement (jumping from the 69th to 79th percentile) but still trails North by 10-20 points in most subjects. At the elementary level, Great Oaks Elementary School leads the pack with 4th grade math proficiency at 61.8%, while Dean A Naldrett School also performs well and boasts the district's lowest chronic absenteeism at just 9.3%. On the other end, Francois Maconce Elementary School is the district's biggest concern—it has declined to the 34th percentile, has a 64.58% free/reduced lunch rate (highest by far), and struggles despite having the lowest student-teacher ratio.

At the secondary level, Anchor Bay High School posts a strong 94.8% graduation rate and solid SAT reading/writing scores (57.1% proficiency), but lags in science (27.8% vs. 35.2% state). Chronic absenteeism is a clear predictor of trouble: Francois Maconce (34.9%) and the high school (27.3%) struggle most, while top performers like Great Oaks (10.3%) and Dean A Naldrett (9.3%) have the lowest rates. Notably, every elementary school in the district has seen its ranking decline over the past three years, and the gap between highest and lowest elementary performers exceeds 35 percentage points—a pattern that mirrors the district's geographic and socioeconomic divide between its northern and southern zones.