Carstens ElementaryMiddle School

Carstens ElementaryMiddle School is one of the cozy K-5 schools in DETROIT, Michigan, run under Detroit Public Schools Community District, with 266 students on its rolls from grades pre-K through 8. Compared to the state average of about 369 students per school, that is 28% smaller than typical.

Carstens ElementaryMiddle School is one of 103 schools operated by Detroit Public Schools Community District, a district that enrolls 48,448 students overall.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Carstens ElementaryMiddle School lists that 99% of students identify as Black, making the school strongly Black-majority. That is meaningfully more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 37%.

On the income-and-resources front, Staff filings list 19 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 14.0:1 students per teacher. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 15.8:1 average. Roughly 95% of students at Carstens ElementaryMiddle School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. By comparison, Wayne County runs at roughly 66%, so the school's eligibility rate is above the surrounding baseline.

In the surrounding community, census data for Wayne County shows median household earnings sit near $60,539, 28% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 16%. Carstens ElementaryMiddle School is one of 573 public schools in Wayne County (combined enrollment of about 259,786 students).

Capstone Academy Charter SchoolRiverbend is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.5 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Carstens ElementaryMiddle School.

Geographically, the school is in a city-core area.

Over the past 7-year window. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Carstens ElementaryMiddle School has shrank 27%, going from 363 students in 2018 to 266 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 20.2:1 in 2018 to 14.0:1 today.

Inside the community feed, recent activity here tends to focus on science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.