Michigan school safety

Michigan runs its schools through 900 separate districts. Many of them are one or two buildings in a township. That structure shapes what this page can and cannot tell you: only 96 districts have enough scoreable schools to be ranked against districts elsewhere in the country. The other districts aren't being withheld or penalized. They are simply too small, or their records too thin, for a district-level comparison to carry weight.

For the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection, Michigan reported 3,570 schools. We publish a safety score for 1,682 of them. A published score means one thing: the school's incident reporting looks complete enough that we are willing to stand behind what it says.

Every school is compared to roughly 1,500 schools nationally that are closest to it in enrollment and teach the same grade levels. Among those peers that reported something, we take the 25th percentile of the incident rate — a deliberately low bar. A school reporting less than a quarter of what that bar implies for its size has not given evidence of safety. Grades A and B mean records we believe, and only those schools get a score. C means a school reported almost nothing but is small enough that a genuine zero is common — not evidence of safety, but not implausible. D and E mean schools of the same size normally report several incidents, or ten or more, and this one reported almost none.

In Michigan, 499 schools fall into D or E. That is 14.0% of the state, against 11.3% nationally. The comparison is not adjusted for state, and it shouldn't be read as one: differences between states here are differences in reporting behavior, not in child safety. A doubtful grade means records we cannot verify.

The districts that rank highest

Woodhaven-Brownstown School District ranks safer than 99% of ranked US districts, with 8 of the 10 schools in its scored set complete enough to score. Kentwood Public Schools ranks safer than 96%, with 11 of 16. Fenton Area Public Schools ranks safer than 95%, with 5 of 7. Rochester Community School District also ranks safer than 95%, with 9 of 22 — a reminder that a district's rank rests only on the schools whose records held up. Hartland Consolidated Schools ranks safer than 94%, with 5 of 9.

Safest ranked cities in Michigan

Percentile is against all ranked U.S. cities (higher = safer). Only cities with ≥5 trustworthy-data schools are ranked. Home value is Zillow's ZHVI.

Safest ranked districts

Every Michigan city with schools

Every Michigan school district