Summary:
Zip code 49251, serving the Leslie, Michigan area, is home to four schools within the Leslie Public Schools district, which together educate roughly 1,087 students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, including a virtual high school option.
For families in this area, the standout choice is clearly Leslie High School, which leads the district with a 96.4% graduation rate and outperforms state averages on both SAT Reading and Math. In contrast, Ingham Virtual High School is a significant concern, posting a 35.2% graduation rate and a 23.5% dropout rate, with an extreme student-teacher ratio of 170.5:1 and the lowest per-student spending in the district. At the elementary level, Woodworth Elementary School shows genuine strength, particularly in 4th grade math where 50% of students are proficient, exceeding the state average by over 10 points. The most troubling pattern emerges at Leslie Middle School, where 5th grade ELA proficiency of 48.6% plummets to just 22.4% by 7th grade, coinciding with the district's highest chronic absenteeism rate at 32.3%.
Key takeaways for parents include a notable spending paradox: the middle school receives the least funding per student ($12,464) among traditional campuses during a critical developmental period, while the high school spends nearly $1,800 more per student and achieves far better outcomes. The district also shows significant year-over-year volatility in rankings and test scores, suggesting small cohort sizes can skew results. Ultimately, the data reveals a district with genuine strengths at the elementary and high school levels, but families should be aware of the middle school achievement dip and the stark underperformance of the virtual school option, which serves the highest percentage of economically disadvantaged students (58.62% free/reduced lunch) yet receives less than half the per-student funding of traditional schools.
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