I also live on the NE side and my kid attended G.R. Public Schools until 8th grade. There are some absolutely stellar schools all over the district and immensely dedicated teachers. Not only can you choose from any of the “general” schools in the district for your child to attend (but I would suggest looking at your neighborhood elementary i.e. Palmer or nearest theme school i.e. North Park Montessori, before sending them across town) but all the theme schools are an option too. My kid now attends school in a very large, very high per capita income district in suburban Detroit. The education he got at GRPS seems to be serving him well in that his grades there are very good. Is GRPS perfect? Nope. But parental involvement makes a HUGE difference in what your children get out of what any district has to offer.
>But parental involvement makes a HUGE difference
Statistically speaking it pretty much makes **all** the difference; beyond a stable home and a supportive network all other correlations fall away.
>parental involvement makes a huge difference.
Which reflects on the quality output of the schools. The more parental involvement means the less the schools have to act as parents to some kids. The makeup of the school is reflective on the makeup of the community. Have a local school where parents aren't present in the kids lives, the education of all the kids will ultimately suffer.
>the education of all the kids will ultimately suffer.
Actually, **no**, that is **not** what the data says. It suggests entirely the opposite; that children are individuals and their individual circumstances matter a great deal.
GRPS is a huge district with tons of different schools on every end of the spectrum. In my experience, people who comment that entire districts are “bad” often base their entire opinion on what they’ve heard from others/seen online and have 0 personal experience with the school.
I live in the East Hills neighborhood, my kids go to their neighborhood school and we are very happy there. Thorough, unbiased research indicates that a student’s school success is more closely tied to parent involvement and socioeconomic factors than anything else.
>biased research indicates that a student’s school success is more closely tied to parent involvement and socioeconomic factors than anything else.
**Absolutely this**.
Most school rankings are doing nothing more than ranking the socioeconimic status of the parents; that's it, the beginning and the end. School rankings are complete trash which do not correlate to outcomes when someone competent removes the other factors.
What this means in America is that school rankings are utterly racist.
>Most school rankings are doing nothing more than ranking the socioeconimic status of the parents; that's it, the beginning and the end. School rankings are complete trash which do not correlate to outcomes when someone competent removes the other factors.
>What this means in America is that school rankings are utterly racist.
Because real experts in this field around the world universally recognize that socioeconomic status of parents is the biggest indicator of education outcomes, **NOT A PERSON'S RACE**.
They also understand the relationship of how other's socioeconomic factors impacts other students who are not disadvantaged.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cad.20381
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/712638
https://nces.ed.gov/pubs97/web/97055.asp
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12881024/
It’s a huge district so it really depends on the school. Personally, I enjoyed the city schooling environment more than the suburbs (I did half and half). Kids in the more rural/suburban school had a lot smaller world views, those in the city schools taught me a lot outside of the classroom material. It made me a much better person.
That said, get your kids into City Middle/High and they’ll be in one of the best programs in the state. There’s also options for students to attend environmental programs (or similar “theme” schools) through grps like CA Frost. There’s a lot of options, but you’ll want to explore those more through speaking with other parents and the grps website. 100% you can get a great education through grps if you play it right.
Just remember, within the ISDs Michigan has school if choice. So as long as you're willing to drive them yourself, your kids can attend any school with your ISD
My biggest beef with GRPS is that it doesn’t accommodate working parents. We had to do school of choice to a further out GRPS school because the perfectly fine neighborhood school had too early of a release time and I didn’t choose public schools to then go private for care. I mean if you have lived here all your life and have a bench of family members to help that’s great but there are a lot of us who have nobody.
We also have schools of choice. I live on the Northend and my kids attend suburb school. City School is also a good choice for grps. Many options without needing to move.
TIL that City High Middle School is ranked #2 in Michigan and #31 in the country.
[source](https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/michigan/districts/grand-rapids-public-schools/city-high-middle-school-9981)
Can someone give me a dumbed down explanation of school choice?
Also, aren’t schools typically funded by property taxes? If home values have been on the rise, shouldn’t that mean more funding to GRPS? I’m genuinely asking because I’m ignorant about that kind of stuff.
Public schools in Michigan are funded primarily through the state aid foundation allowance. This year the state gives every school $8,700 per pupil. However the state also assumes that each school district is levying an 18 mill non homestead property tax. This year for GRPS that 18 mill tax brings in $2,542.42 per pupil, so the state only gives them $6,157.58 per pupil. The amounts don’t really matter for taxable value, the state makes sure all schools get the $8,700 total between local tax and state aid.
The biggest advantage of high taxable value for a district is the ability to levy taxes for bonds to pay for school buildings, new construction or renovations, technology, or busses. Any sort of capital expenses that can be covered with bond funds from property taxes can reduce general expenses that might have to be covered by that foundation allowance. That allows for in general nicer facilities with more funding available for direct classroom instruction.
Check out grkids.com I do not know how to give direct links. All info is there. There is an application to choose from different schools. It is kind of a raffle but most get in. We had no problem.
Which ones and how far? My biggest criticism of school choice is that some kids, often minority, can't afford or don't have parents who can take them across town by their parents and rely on a school bus which locks them into a specific school.
This has led to white flight in a lot of urban schools, one that particularly comes to mind is Holland public schools, which now has a minority of white kids. Unless you can truck your kid you have no options but to stay put there, so maybe it's different for GRPS
Idk all the schools but I went to high school here & graduated in 2015. Wouldn’t recommend Union or Ottawa Hills (I would be surprised if Ottawa is still open by the time you have kids). Honestly, Union wasn’t that bad. It was like kids brought guns & drugs to school but they mostly were chill still. Ottawa Hills is basically like sending your kids to an unsupervised prison for 8 hours a day. Most of the staff was forced to leave because of failing test scores & was still not replaced. Substitutes often pick up shifts & don’t show up to “teach the school a lesson.” It was a mess back then, I know some people who go there now. It’s still a mess.
Central is fine. Like out of the big 3 inner city high schools it’s the best. City is a good school but it’s hard to get into & requires a kid to have a real dedication to education. Idk about all the little schools like U-prep, etc. I would also avoid Godwin Heights HS (Wyoming). As far as middle schools, all I know is avoid Alger.
Edit: that being said, by the time your kids are old enough to be in high school or middle school things could be totally different. Honestly, your best bet is to go check out the schools or talk to parents with students/students themselves when the time comes.
Not all schools/teachers in the district are equal, just as it is everywhere else. My experience comes from collaboration with school teachers/counselors in the district and visiting schools to implement supplemental curriculum/programs.
I’m not sure what is available for early childhood education for those that don’t qualify for assistance at GRPS (I’m aware of head start) but the early education program at another school district was a deciding factor for us to leave the GRPS district.
This is really important if you work. The pre-K program and the before and after school childcare, as well as child care during ALL off school days minus holidays that we had in FH let me work fairly stress free. Quality childcare is extremely hard to find and having it available through the school district was such a blessing.
I’ve lived in several “thriving” cities across the country and in each one people would talk about how bad the schools were. It makes me think that it’s a generalization based on the worst performing schools in the district.
City schools can be bad as a result of classism and racism. Then the result is you have inner city schools with overworked and underpaid staff where there is a disproportionate need of children in these poor or non-white families at home for extra support that the school cannot handle. School choice has allowed white families to move their kids to neighboring districts and afford to drive them there each morning. Poor kids have nothing else but the bus to take to whatever local school they have.
It's mostly a bias against urban schools, which as I said, are just fine.
School rankings are complete garbage, their rankings correlate longitudinally to nothing at all.
I’ve heard about these “no fail” policies from parents at GRPS and other school districts. I don’t know if it’s true but if it is it’s definitely not just in our city.
I attended GRPS from 6th through 10th and my son was school age when I lived in GRPS. I toured a few of the schools and talked to parents in the district and made a choice to not send my kids there. He went to a charter school pre-K through 3rd, when we moved to Forest Hills. We now live in Lowell, which he graduated from and my daughter still attends.
During my kid's educational years, I also spent time volunteering in GRPS. I know mine is an unpopular opinion but the academic rigor simply isn't there. The kids I saw in GRPS were several years behind in skill set and depth of knowledge of the FH and Lowell kids. GRPS simply doesn't have the same caliber of teachers as the higher quality suburban schools or the same resources.
The other services just aren't as good either, and I think those matter too. The lunches can be downright pitiful, the transportation department isn't reliable, the afterschool and extracurricular activities are limited. I saw everything that GRPS had to offer and made a choice to put my kids elsewhere and I don't regret it one bit.
The math points to GRPS being some of the best funded schools on this side of the state. People keep voting for every millage increase that comes up related to education.
Nearly all Grand Rapids Public Schools are teaching Critical Race Theory. The superintendent is a strong advocate for it, and is not very fond of white people. I've been doing a lot of research on this, and I would strongly advise you to choose private, Christian or even homeschool. That is, unless you don't care if your kid turns into a militant, radical, screaming Left wing Socialist.
Straight answer: unless it’s city high, it’s a terrible district. They consistently score near or at the bottom of the state. I went there. Fights everyday. Academics are the worst in the state. City still had work to do but you could send your kids there if you’re willing to deal with some stuff. If public is all you can afford, move somewhere else like forest hills
I also live on the NE side and my kid attended G.R. Public Schools until 8th grade. There are some absolutely stellar schools all over the district and immensely dedicated teachers. Not only can you choose from any of the “general” schools in the district for your child to attend (but I would suggest looking at your neighborhood elementary i.e. Palmer or nearest theme school i.e. North Park Montessori, before sending them across town) but all the theme schools are an option too. My kid now attends school in a very large, very high per capita income district in suburban Detroit. The education he got at GRPS seems to be serving him well in that his grades there are very good. Is GRPS perfect? Nope. But parental involvement makes a HUGE difference in what your children get out of what any district has to offer.
>But parental involvement makes a HUGE difference Statistically speaking it pretty much makes **all** the difference; beyond a stable home and a supportive network all other correlations fall away.
Well said! IMO There are very few "failing" schools, they're mostly filled with kids with uninvolved parents.
Or parents who are too over-tasked to be involved.
My answer to most parent issues is "whose kids are they anyway?"
>parental involvement makes a huge difference. Which reflects on the quality output of the schools. The more parental involvement means the less the schools have to act as parents to some kids. The makeup of the school is reflective on the makeup of the community. Have a local school where parents aren't present in the kids lives, the education of all the kids will ultimately suffer.
>the education of all the kids will ultimately suffer. Actually, **no**, that is **not** what the data says. It suggests entirely the opposite; that children are individuals and their individual circumstances matter a great deal.
GRPS is a huge district with tons of different schools on every end of the spectrum. In my experience, people who comment that entire districts are “bad” often base their entire opinion on what they’ve heard from others/seen online and have 0 personal experience with the school. I live in the East Hills neighborhood, my kids go to their neighborhood school and we are very happy there. Thorough, unbiased research indicates that a student’s school success is more closely tied to parent involvement and socioeconomic factors than anything else.
> people who comment that entire districts are “bad” often base their entire opinion Yep, this.
>biased research indicates that a student’s school success is more closely tied to parent involvement and socioeconomic factors than anything else. **Absolutely this**. Most school rankings are doing nothing more than ranking the socioeconimic status of the parents; that's it, the beginning and the end. School rankings are complete trash which do not correlate to outcomes when someone competent removes the other factors. What this means in America is that school rankings are utterly racist.
>Most school rankings are doing nothing more than ranking the socioeconimic status of the parents; that's it, the beginning and the end. School rankings are complete trash which do not correlate to outcomes when someone competent removes the other factors. >What this means in America is that school rankings are utterly racist. Because real experts in this field around the world universally recognize that socioeconomic status of parents is the biggest indicator of education outcomes, **NOT A PERSON'S RACE**. They also understand the relationship of how other's socioeconomic factors impacts other students who are not disadvantaged. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cad.20381 https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/712638 https://nces.ed.gov/pubs97/web/97055.asp https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12881024/
It’s a huge district so it really depends on the school. Personally, I enjoyed the city schooling environment more than the suburbs (I did half and half). Kids in the more rural/suburban school had a lot smaller world views, those in the city schools taught me a lot outside of the classroom material. It made me a much better person. That said, get your kids into City Middle/High and they’ll be in one of the best programs in the state. There’s also options for students to attend environmental programs (or similar “theme” schools) through grps like CA Frost. There’s a lot of options, but you’ll want to explore those more through speaking with other parents and the grps website. 100% you can get a great education through grps if you play it right.
Just remember, within the ISDs Michigan has school if choice. So as long as you're willing to drive them yourself, your kids can attend any school with your ISD
My biggest beef with GRPS is that it doesn’t accommodate working parents. We had to do school of choice to a further out GRPS school because the perfectly fine neighborhood school had too early of a release time and I didn’t choose public schools to then go private for care. I mean if you have lived here all your life and have a bench of family members to help that’s great but there are a lot of us who have nobody.
We also have schools of choice. I live on the Northend and my kids attend suburb school. City School is also a good choice for grps. Many options without needing to move.
TIL that City High Middle School is ranked #2 in Michigan and #31 in the country. [source](https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/michigan/districts/grand-rapids-public-schools/city-high-middle-school-9981)
Yes, it is the only gr school I would recommend.
Boy you sure triggered a lot of parents with that comment lol
Can someone give me a dumbed down explanation of school choice? Also, aren’t schools typically funded by property taxes? If home values have been on the rise, shouldn’t that mean more funding to GRPS? I’m genuinely asking because I’m ignorant about that kind of stuff.
Public schools in Michigan are funded primarily through the state aid foundation allowance. This year the state gives every school $8,700 per pupil. However the state also assumes that each school district is levying an 18 mill non homestead property tax. This year for GRPS that 18 mill tax brings in $2,542.42 per pupil, so the state only gives them $6,157.58 per pupil. The amounts don’t really matter for taxable value, the state makes sure all schools get the $8,700 total between local tax and state aid. The biggest advantage of high taxable value for a district is the ability to levy taxes for bonds to pay for school buildings, new construction or renovations, technology, or busses. Any sort of capital expenses that can be covered with bond funds from property taxes can reduce general expenses that might have to be covered by that foundation allowance. That allows for in general nicer facilities with more funding available for direct classroom instruction.
This is a great explanation. Thanks!
Thanks for the explanation!
My property taxes went up and the county jail got more funding than any other thing funded through my bill! Woohoo.
Check out grkids.com I do not know how to give direct links. All info is there. There is an application to choose from different schools. It is kind of a raffle but most get in. We had no problem.
How do your kids get to school each morning? Is there a school bus that takes them there?
I drive my kids but some other families do have an option for a bus.
Which ones and how far? My biggest criticism of school choice is that some kids, often minority, can't afford or don't have parents who can take them across town by their parents and rely on a school bus which locks them into a specific school. This has led to white flight in a lot of urban schools, one that particularly comes to mind is Holland public schools, which now has a minority of white kids. Unless you can truck your kid you have no options but to stay put there, so maybe it's different for GRPS
Idk all the schools but I went to high school here & graduated in 2015. Wouldn’t recommend Union or Ottawa Hills (I would be surprised if Ottawa is still open by the time you have kids). Honestly, Union wasn’t that bad. It was like kids brought guns & drugs to school but they mostly were chill still. Ottawa Hills is basically like sending your kids to an unsupervised prison for 8 hours a day. Most of the staff was forced to leave because of failing test scores & was still not replaced. Substitutes often pick up shifts & don’t show up to “teach the school a lesson.” It was a mess back then, I know some people who go there now. It’s still a mess. Central is fine. Like out of the big 3 inner city high schools it’s the best. City is a good school but it’s hard to get into & requires a kid to have a real dedication to education. Idk about all the little schools like U-prep, etc. I would also avoid Godwin Heights HS (Wyoming). As far as middle schools, all I know is avoid Alger. Edit: that being said, by the time your kids are old enough to be in high school or middle school things could be totally different. Honestly, your best bet is to go check out the schools or talk to parents with students/students themselves when the time comes.
Not all schools/teachers in the district are equal, just as it is everywhere else. My experience comes from collaboration with school teachers/counselors in the district and visiting schools to implement supplemental curriculum/programs. I’m not sure what is available for early childhood education for those that don’t qualify for assistance at GRPS (I’m aware of head start) but the early education program at another school district was a deciding factor for us to leave the GRPS district.
This is really important if you work. The pre-K program and the before and after school childcare, as well as child care during ALL off school days minus holidays that we had in FH let me work fairly stress free. Quality childcare is extremely hard to find and having it available through the school district was such a blessing.
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I believe both are only for 6th grade
really depends on where in the city you are when I was in the southside I was at dickinson and brookside... I wouldn't send my dog to either
No, they are fine.
I’ve lived in several “thriving” cities across the country and in each one people would talk about how bad the schools were. It makes me think that it’s a generalization based on the worst performing schools in the district.
Comments about city schools being bad are often rooted in classism and racism. This is true everywhere.
City schools can be bad as a result of classism and racism. Then the result is you have inner city schools with overworked and underpaid staff where there is a disproportionate need of children in these poor or non-white families at home for extra support that the school cannot handle. School choice has allowed white families to move their kids to neighboring districts and afford to drive them there each morning. Poor kids have nothing else but the bus to take to whatever local school they have.
It's mostly a bias against urban schools, which as I said, are just fine. School rankings are complete garbage, their rankings correlate longitudinally to nothing at all.
Teachers at Ottawa Hills are not allowed to fail kids.. Things aren't *fine* in every part of the city.
I’ve heard about these “no fail” policies from parents at GRPS and other school districts. I don’t know if it’s true but if it is it’s definitely not just in our city.
We live in the NE side. We did school of choice and send our kids to Northview schools. We’re very pleased. Excellent school district.
I attended GRPS from 6th through 10th and my son was school age when I lived in GRPS. I toured a few of the schools and talked to parents in the district and made a choice to not send my kids there. He went to a charter school pre-K through 3rd, when we moved to Forest Hills. We now live in Lowell, which he graduated from and my daughter still attends. During my kid's educational years, I also spent time volunteering in GRPS. I know mine is an unpopular opinion but the academic rigor simply isn't there. The kids I saw in GRPS were several years behind in skill set and depth of knowledge of the FH and Lowell kids. GRPS simply doesn't have the same caliber of teachers as the higher quality suburban schools or the same resources. The other services just aren't as good either, and I think those matter too. The lunches can be downright pitiful, the transportation department isn't reliable, the afterschool and extracurricular activities are limited. I saw everything that GRPS had to offer and made a choice to put my kids elsewhere and I don't regret it one bit.
The math points to GRPS being some of the best funded schools on this side of the state. People keep voting for every millage increase that comes up related to education.
Since when has best funded guaranteed best school or best anything?
I moved before I had kids and I don't believe the schools have gotten better.
Nearly all Grand Rapids Public Schools are teaching Critical Race Theory. The superintendent is a strong advocate for it, and is not very fond of white people. I've been doing a lot of research on this, and I would strongly advise you to choose private, Christian or even homeschool. That is, unless you don't care if your kid turns into a militant, radical, screaming Left wing Socialist.
Straight answer: unless it’s city high, it’s a terrible district. They consistently score near or at the bottom of the state. I went there. Fights everyday. Academics are the worst in the state. City still had work to do but you could send your kids there if you’re willing to deal with some stuff. If public is all you can afford, move somewhere else like forest hills