High Schools in Westwood Heights Schools

The Westwood Heights Schools district in Flint, Michigan, contains two high schools serving roughly 596 students in grades 6 through 12, operating in a high-poverty area where the district ranks in the 6th percentile statewide.

Hamady Community High School is the stronger of the two schools, serving grades 9-12 with 397 students. Its graduation rate of 90.6% actually exceeds the state average of 84.0%, a remarkable achievement given that 84.1% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. The school has shown improvement, climbing from the 1st to 9th percentile in state rankings, with social studies proficiency jumping from 7% to 19% in one year. However, academic proficiency remains very low—only 6% of 11th graders are proficient in science, and just 19.3% meet SAT reading and writing benchmarks. Chronic absenteeism affects 51.1% of students, roughly double the state rate.

In stark contrast, Academy West Alternative Education is in crisis. Serving grades 6-12 with 199 students, this school has a devastating 32.5% graduation rate and a 46.8% dropout rate. Nearly two-thirds of students (63.2%) are chronically absent, and the student-teacher ratio of 22.6:1 is the highest in the district—particularly problematic for an alternative school where students need more individualized attention. Despite spending slightly more per student ($17,407) than Hamady ($17,165), outcomes are dramatically worse, with only 9.1% proficiency in both science and social studies. The district's overall 57.6% graduation rate masks this extreme divergence: Hamady outperforms the state average while Academy West loses nearly half its students. Both schools spend well above typical Michigan averages, yet academic results remain in single digits for core subjects, suggesting that poverty, absenteeism, and related challenges require interventions beyond increased funding. Chronic absenteeism—at roughly double the state average in both schools—emerges as the foundational barrier that must be addressed before academic improvements can take hold.