Waverly Community Schools

Waverly Community Schools is a mid-sized district in Lansing, Michigan, serving about 2,822 students across six schools, from early childhood through 12th grade, and currently ranks in the lower quartile of Michigan districts with a 1-star rating.

For parents, the standout bright spot is Elmwood Elementary School, which consistently earns 2-star ratings and posts the district’s best test scores despite serving a high percentage of economically disadvantaged students. Its 4th grade math proficiency (34.8%) is nearly seven times higher than Winans Elementary School (5.1%), even though both schools have similar demographics. Elmwood also has the lowest chronic absenteeism rate in the district at 20.9%—below the state average—while Waverly Middle School struggles with 45.9% of students chronically absent. East Intermediate School shows encouraging year-over-year gains in 5th grade subjects, though scores remain below state averages. At the high school level, Waverly Senior High School posts a strong 92.7% graduation rate, but only 11.5% of 11th graders are proficient in SAT math—a dramatic drop from the prior year.

District-wide, academic proficiency trails state averages by 15–25 points in most subjects, with math showing a particularly troubling decline from 14.6% proficiency in 5th grade to just 8.9% by 8th grade. Meryl S Colt Early Childhood Education Center invests heavily in its youngest learners with a $20,399 per-student budget and an 8.2:1 student-teacher ratio, but faces a 40.8% chronic absenteeism rate. Notably, higher spending does not guarantee better results—Winans spends $16,675 per student yet produces the weakest outcomes, while Elmwood achieves the best results with the lowest spending ($14,918). The district’s main opportunities lie in tackling absenteeism, especially at the middle school level, and replicating Elmwood’s successful practices across other schools.