Summary:
Zip code 49765 in Michigan is served by a single middle school, Onaway Middle School, which enrolls 106 students in grades 6 through 8 within the Onaway Area Community School District.
For parents considering this school, the most important takeaway is that Onaway Middle School is currently struggling academically, ranking 738th out of 896 Michigan middle schools (18th percentile) for the 2025-2026 school year. This represents a sharp decline from just two years prior, when the school ranked in the 49th percentile. The school serves a economically challenged population, with 60.38% of students eligible for free or reduced lunch, and spends a relatively high $14,831 per student. Chronic absenteeism sits at 25.2%, which is below the state average of 27.9% but above the district's own rate of 19.0%. The student-teacher ratio is a favorable 15.7, suggesting classes are not overcrowded.
The data reveals extreme year-to-year volatility in test scores, likely due to the small cohort size of roughly 30-35 students per grade. For instance, 8th-grade science proficiency swung from 56.3% in 2024-2025 down to 22.9% in 2025-2026, while social studies dropped from 62.5% to 25.7% in the same period. A consistent and concerning weakness is mathematics, where proficiency rates across all grades hover between 8% and 19%—roughly 20-25 points below state averages. However, there is a silver lining: the 8th-grade class of 2024-2025 posted a PSAT English Language Arts proficiency rate of 71.9%, exceeding the state average of 65.3%, and also beat state averages in science and social studies. This suggests the school's curriculum can produce strong results, and the current low scores may reflect a specific underperforming cohort rather than a permanent systemic failure. Parents should expect significant fluctuation in outcomes from year to year and may want to investigate math support programs specifically.
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