Valley Center School
KALAMAZOO · MI · Kalamazoo RESA · Public · K-12 combined
Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Kalamazoo County Juvenile Home Youth Center School → Youth Center School → The Epic Center → Comstock High School → Kalamazoo Covenant Academy → Comstock Compass High School → Kalamazoo Area Math and Science Center → Kalamazoo Innovative Learning Program →📋 At a glance
- 🎓 AP rigor: Bottom 18% of US high schools
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 1% by test-taker volume
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Valley Center School compares for families
What families should know about Valley Center School.
- ▸ LocallyMI sits right at the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math — local school quality will set your kid apart.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Kalamazoo County Juvenile Home Youth Center School, Youth Center School, The Epic Center and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
For Parents
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Get an email when Valley Center School's numbers change — new admissions results, enrollment shifts, test scores. A few updates a year, no spam.
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-21Bottom 1% by test-taker volume
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.
👩🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC
Teacher experience & reliability
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
Title I Schoolwide eligible
≥40% FRPL — qualifies for Title I Schoolwide program
40-74% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. The district can use Title I funds across the whole school under federal Schoolwide Program rules.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the most reliable early indicator that a student will leave a school — either by transferring out, dropping out, or matriculating to a charter or private alternative. At this level, today's absentees become next year's enrollment loss and the year-after's revenue loss. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of -1.1%/year, projecting from 2024's 30 students:
A small or specialty program — naive trend math doesn't capture the school's full picture. Read the trend as directional, not predictive.
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Nearby high schools — the local competition
The closest high schools families here also consider, and where their enrollment is heading.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kalamazoo County Juvenile Home Youth Center School KALAMAZOO |
Public | 2.1 | — | — |
| Youth Center School KALAMAZOO |
Public | 2.1 | 37 | — |
| The Epic Center KALAMAZOO |
Public | 2.3 | — | — |
| Comstock High School KALAMAZOO |
Public | 2.3 | 358 | -8.4% |
| Kalamazoo Covenant Academy KALAMAZOO |
Public · charter | 2.4 | 184 | +57.3% |
| Comstock Compass High School KALAMAZOO |
Public | 2.4 | 250 | +33.7% |
| Kalamazoo Area Math and Science Center KALAMAZOO |
Public | 2.6 | — | — |
| Kalamazoo Innovative Learning Program KALAMAZOO |
Public | 2.6 | 137 | +140.4% |