Garfield Heights City Schools

Garfield Heights City Schools is a five-school Ohio district serving PK–12 students in Garfield Heights, with about 2,581 students across three elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school. The district is rated near the bottom of Ohio: rank 720 of 773, 7th percentile, 0 stars. Enrollment is largest at Garfield Heights High School (942), followed by Garfield Heights Middle School (541), William Foster Elementary School (398, PK–1), Elmwood Elementary School (374, 2–3), and Maple Leaf Elementary School (326, 4–5). Free/reduced-lunch data are blank, so they are not treated as zero or as a weakness.

Among elementary schools, Maple Leaf Elementary School has the strongest broad test profile, with 4th-grade math at 40.3% and 5th-grade ELA at 37.3%. Elmwood Elementary School has the district’s lowest chronic absenteeism (49.5% vs. 61.9% districtwide) and the highest single ELA score, 39.1% in 3rd-grade ELA. William Foster Elementary School serves PK–1 and has no state test scores here. At the secondary level, Garfield Heights High School has a 92.3% graduation rate and the highest single proficiency score, American Government at 61.4%, but also 74.4% chronic absenteeism, Geometry at 9.6%, and English II at 28.7%. Garfield Heights Middle School has the lowest student-teacher ratio (10.4) and lowest per-student spending ($6,289), yet its weakest results include 7th-grade math at 10.3% and 8th-grade ELA at 18.1%.

Overall, every reported 2025–2026 proficiency score is below the state average. Elementary results are generally stronger than middle school results, where math is mostly in the 10–13% range. The biggest improvement is high school Algebra I, which rose from 15.1% to 33.2%. Chronic absenteeism is a major concern, especially at the high school (74.4%) and middle school (63.8%). Spending and class size do not show a simple relationship with outcomes: the middle school has the lowest spending and smallest classes but the weakest tests, while Elmwood Elementary School has the highest spending and largest classes but the lowest absenteeism. Rank histories also differ: Maple Leaf Elementary School has been stable (17, 16, 15), the high school declined (19, 17, 12), and the middle school moved from 7 to 13 to 9.