Best Elementary Schools in Zip Code 49421

Zip code 49421 is served by a single elementary school, Patricia St Clair Elementary School, which is part of the Hesperia Community Schools district and enrolls 354 students in grades kindergarten through fifth grade.

For parents considering this area, the most important takeaway is that Patricia St Clair Elementary School is currently performing well below state averages in nearly every subject and grade level. The school holds a 1-star rating and ranks in the 17th percentile among Michigan elementary schools. On the 2025-2026 M-Step tests, proficiency rates are low across the board: 4th-grade English Language Arts sits at just 8.77% (compared to a 41.3% state average), while 5th-grade math proficiency is only 9.2%. The strongest relative performance appears in 5th-grade science, where the school reached 32.3% proficiency, though this still trails the state. It is also worth noting that the school spends a substantial $18,197 per student, which is high, yet this investment does not currently translate into strong academic outcomes. With 70.62% of students eligible for free/reduced lunch, the school serves a high-poverty population, and the chronic absenteeism rate of 26.6% is nearly identical to the state average.

There are a few notable patterns within the data. Grade-level performance is inconsistent, with 5th-grade ELA proficiency (28.1%) more than three times higher than 4th-grade ELA (8.77%), which may indicate cohort differences or instructional variability. Interestingly, in the 2024-2025 school year, 5th-grade science proficiency (42.6%) actually exceeded the state average (40.3%)—the only instance in the data where the school outperformed the state—though it declined the following year. Since Patricia St Clair Elementary School is the only elementary school in the district, its results directly define the district's overall performance. Parents should be aware that while the school faces clear academic challenges, the high per-student spending and small district size may offer opportunities for targeted interventions and community involvement.