East Jackson Secondary School

East Jackson Secondary School is a public school in Jackson, MI, serving 359 students in grades 7 through 12 as part of the East Jackson Community Schools district, where about 79% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

This school shows a mix of strengths and challenges. In the most recent testing year, 11th graders posted notably strong results in Science (34.3% proficient) and Social Studies (40%), outperforming nearby Jackson High School and Michigan Center JrSr High School in both subjects. Another bright spot is 8th-grade English Language Arts, where 56.4% of students met proficiency—well above the district average and close to the state average. However, math proficiency is critically low across all grade levels, with only about 8–9% of 7th and 9th graders meeting standards, a fraction of the state average. The school’s overall state ranking has been volatile, swinging from the 3rd percentile to the 50th percentile in recent years, and currently sits at the 31st percentile.

One of the most pressing concerns is chronic absenteeism, which affects 44.4% of students—far higher than the state average of 27.9% and even above the district’s troubling 35.6% rate. This likely plays a major role in the academic struggles, especially in cumulative subjects like math. On a more positive note, the school’s graduation rate of 81.4% outpaces the district average of 77.9%, and its dropout rate (5.7%) is much lower than the district’s 9.0%, suggesting the school is successfully retaining students who might otherwise leave. Compared to the East Jackson Virtual Academy—which has a 42.8% graduation rate and a 42.8% dropout rate—this in-person school provides a far more stable and successful environment for most students in the district.