Summary:
Zip code 49676 is home to a single elementary school, Rapid City Elementary School, which serves grades PK through 5 and is part of the Kalkaska Public Schools district, with a very small enrollment of just 70 students.
Rapid City Elementary School is the only school in this area, so all comparisons are made against district and state averages. The school ranks in the 45th percentile statewide for the 2025-2026 school year, which places it in the lower half of Michigan elementary schools, though its ranking has shown a steady upward trend over the past three years, moving from the 37th to the 45th percentile. Academically, the school's 5th-grade proficiency rates in English Language Arts (36.36%), Math (27.27%), and Science (36.36%) are nearly identical to the district averages but trail the state averages in each subject, with the largest gap in ELA (7.4 percentage points behind the state). However, the school stands out with a notable strength in Social Studies, where its proficiency rate of 27.27% exceeds both the district (23.2%) and essentially ties the state average (27.5%).
Despite serving a predominantly low-income population, with 77.14% of students eligible for free or reduced lunch, the school posts a chronic absenteeism rate of 22.9%, which is better than both the district (27.0%) and state (27.9%) averages, suggesting strong engagement. The school also benefits from a favorable student-teacher ratio of 11.6, which allows for more individualized attention given the small cohort of roughly 11 students per grade. This personalized environment may be contributing to the school's improving state ranking over recent years. Parents should note that with such a small student body, year-to-year test score fluctuations can be significant, and the data is limited to 5th-grade results only.
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