Michigan's School Reform Office released the much-anticipated 2015 list of the lowest achieving 5% of all public schools and several local school districts have schools on the updated list.
Schools in Calhoun, Kent, Kalamazoo and Muskegon counties are listed. The schools on the list are at risk for being closed down if there's a long-term lack of success.
School administrators in Grand Rapids and Muskegon told us today they don't believe any of their schools are at-risk for closure because of the poor scores.
The list was generated by the state, in part, by using the 2015 M-Step scores. That year was the first M-Step was used after the old MEAP testing was retired.
Muskegon Superintendent Jon Felske was proud to see only one school on the list this time around. Previously Nelson Elementary was listed as a priority school but is now off the list currently. Marquette Elementary is on the list this year as being in the bottom 5 percent.
Felske has no fears that Marquette will be closed down. In fact, he thinks Marquette will follow the same track as Nelson in being taken off the list because of academic success.
"What I would tell our parents at Marquette and our teachers at Marquette is that they will receive the same types of training that staff members at Nelson did and we believe in the same short period of time we'll be able to do the same thing to turn that building around," Felske said.
The goal of this new program the state's instituted is to get schools in the bottom 5% to be in the top 25% of the schools statewide. If the schools don't achieve any success over a period of several years, they can be closed by the state.
Several schools are on the list in the Grand Rapids school system but district spokesman John Helmholdt says the district has been assured by the state there will be no school closures.
We have been told that closing of schools would only happen to the bottom of the bottom, schools that were in the zero percentile over many years.
SCHOOLS ON THE LIST:
Battle Creek Public Schools
Dudley School
Calhoun ISD
2013 Priority
Grand Rapids Public Schools
Burton Elementary School
Kent ISD
2015 Priority
Grand Rapids Public Schools
Burton Middle School
Kent ISD
2015 Priority
Grand Rapids Public Schools
Martin Luther King Leadership Academy
Kent ISD
2013 Priority
Grand Rapids Public Schools
Westwood Middle School
Kent ISD
2015 Priority
Hope Academy of West Michigan
Hope Academy of West Michigan
Kent ISD
2014 Priority
Kalamazoo Public Schools
Washington Writers' Academy
Kalamazoo RESA
2013 Priority
Kalamazoo Public Schools
Woodward School for Technology and Research
Kalamazoo RESA
2013 Priority
Michigan Virtual Charter Academy
Michigan Virtual Charter Academy
Kent ISD
2014 Priority
Muskegon Heights Public School Academy System
Muskegon Heights Academy
Muskegon Area ISD
2010 Priority
Muskegon, Public Schools of the City of
Marquette Elementary School
Muskegon Area ISD
2015 Priority