Middle Schools in Eau Claire Public Schools

Eau Claire Public Schools in Michigan is served by a single middle school, Eau Claire Middle School, which enrolls 139 students in grades 6-8 and sits in a small, economically challenged community where 91% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch.

For parents, the most important takeaway is that Eau Claire Middle School faces significant academic hurdles but is showing clear signs of improvement. The school spends a robust $14,119 per student and maintains a favorable 13.9:1 student-teacher ratio, yet proficiency rates on state tests trail Michigan averages by 15 to 29 percentage points across all subjects. The widest gaps appear in 8th-grade PSAT ELA (35.6% proficient vs. 64.8% statewide) and 7th-grade ELA (13.2% vs. 38.4%). However, math is a relative bright spot—7th-grade math proficiency jumped from 6.8% to 18.4% in one year, narrowing the gap to just under 15 points. The school’s state percentile ranking has also climbed from the 9th to the 17th percentile over two years, and it earned its first star in the latest rating cycle.

Encouragingly, chronic absenteeism sits at 20.4%, well below the state average of 27.9%, suggesting students are showing up ready to learn despite high poverty levels. That said, with only about 45-50 students per grade, small cohort sizes mean a handful of students can swing proficiency rates dramatically—so year-to-year changes should be interpreted cautiously. The school also shows an unusual pattern where 8th graders perform better on the PSAT (35.6% ELA proficient) than on the M-Step (13.2% in 7th grade), which may indicate students respond better to college-readiness formats. Since this is the district’s only middle school, all district-level results mirror this one campus. While still in the bottom fifth of Michigan schools, the combination of rising scores, low absenteeism, and strong per-student investment suggests Eau Claire Middle School is on a positive trajectory worth watching.