High Schools in South Haven Public Schools

South Haven Public Schools in Michigan serves grades 8-12 across two high schools: South Haven High School, the district’s comprehensive campus with 588 students, and South Haven Alliance Campus SHAC, a much smaller alternative program with 44 students.

These two schools serve very different student populations, and their outcomes reflect that divide. South Haven High School is the stronger performer, graduating 88% of its students—above the state average of 84%—and showing positive momentum, with its state ranking jumping from the 26th to the 39th percentile in one year. Its reading scores are a bright spot, with 52.8% of students proficient on the SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing section, slightly above the state average. However, math is a major weakness: only 14.4% of students are proficient on SAT Math, roughly half the state rate, and this gap persists across all grade levels on PSAT and M-Step exams. Chronic absenteeism is also a concern, affecting 45% of students even at this successful campus. In contrast, South Haven Alliance Campus SHAC faces far more severe challenges, with a graduation rate of just 42.8%, a dropout rate of 33.3%, and 70.6% of students chronically absent. While SHAC offers a very low student-teacher ratio of 4.2:1, suggesting intensive support, no recent test score data is available, making it difficult to gauge academic progress there.

For parents, the key takeaway is that South Haven High School is a solid choice for students who thrive in a traditional setting, especially in reading, but families should be aware of the math achievement gap and high absenteeism. The district spends more per student at the main high school ($14,611) than at SHAC ($10,329), yet SHAC’s outcomes are dramatically worse, raising questions about resource allocation. Overall, the district’s 2-star rating masks the fact that the main high school is improving and outperforms state averages in reading, while the alternative campus struggles with basic completion metrics. Parents considering SHAC should understand it serves a high-need population and may not provide the same academic benchmarks as the traditional high school.