High Schools in Bentley Community School District

The Bentley Community School District in Burton, Michigan, operates two high schools serving grades 9-12: the main Bentley Senior High School with 227 students and the much smaller alternative program, Bentley High School BOLD Academy, with just 25 students.

These two schools serve very different purposes and have starkly different outcomes. Bentley Senior High is the district's traditional comprehensive school, graduating 86.2% of its students—slightly above the state average of 84%—and maintaining a low 3.4% dropout rate. However, its academic performance is a concern: proficiency rates in science (16.7%), social studies (23.8%), and SAT Reading/Writing (23.8%) all trail state averages by 18 to 28 percentage points. More troubling, scores declined sharply from the prior year, with SAT Reading/Writing proficiency dropping 14 points. Chronic absenteeism affects 35% of students, which likely contributes to these struggles. In contrast, the BOLD Academy appears designed for at-risk students but is severely underperforming: its graduation rate is just 33.3%, its dropout rate is 16.6%, and over half its students are chronically absent. The program also has an extraordinarily high student-teacher ratio of 83.3:1 and receives only $5,187 per student—less than one-third of the $15,990 spent at Bentley Senior High—despite serving a population with higher economic need (76% free/reduced lunch versus 60%).

For parents, the key takeaway is that Bentley Senior High offers a more stable, traditional path to graduation, though families should be aware of below-average test scores and rising absenteeism. The BOLD Academy, while potentially offering a smaller setting, currently shows alarming graduation and attendance statistics that warrant serious questions about its effectiveness. The district's overall 1-star rating masks the main school's relative strength in keeping students enrolled through graduation. One positive note: 9th-grade PSAT ELA proficiency (49%) is closest to the state average (60%), suggesting younger students arrive with relatively stronger reading skills that may decline by junior year. Parents should investigate both the academic declines at the main campus and the resource disparities between the two programs when making school choices.