Summary:
North Adams-Jerome Public Schools is home to a single high school, North Adams-Jerome Middle/High School, which serves grades 6 through 12 in the small, rural community of North Adams, Michigan, with a total enrollment of just 163 students.
For parents, the most striking feature of this school is its graduation success. The school posts a 97.1% graduation rate and a 2.8% dropout rate, both dramatically better than state averages (84.0% and 7.1%, respectively). This means nearly every student who starts high school finishes with a diploma. However, this strength in retention does not translate to test scores. The school falls below state proficiency averages in nearly every subject and grade, with particularly large gaps in 8th-grade ELA (30.8% proficient vs. 64.8% statewide) and 8th-grade social studies (17.4% vs. 47.0%). Math is also a concern, with only 10.7% of 9th graders proficient on the PSAT. The lone bright spot is 7th-grade ELA, where the school slightly edges out the state average.
Two other factors stand out. First, chronic absenteeism affects 33.9% of students—about one in three—which is higher than the state rate of 27.9% and likely hampers academic progress. Second, the school’s state ranking has slipped from the 49th percentile in 2018-2019 to the 19th percentile in 2025-2026, even as its graduation rate has remained stellar. With 62% of students qualifying for free/reduced lunch, the school serves a high-poverty population, yet it spends a solid $13,530 per student and maintains a favorable 14.2:1 student-teacher ratio. Given the small size—roughly 23 students per grade—individual cohorts can skew results, but the overarching takeaway is a school that excels at keeping kids on track to graduate but faces clear challenges in raising academic proficiency, especially in science, social studies, and math.
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