Gilkey Elementary School

Gilkey Elementary School is an elementary campus of middle-of-the-pack scale in PLAINWELL, Michigan, one of the schools within Plainwell Community Schools, teacheing 439 students in grades pre-K through 5.

Across the 6 schools in Plainwell Community Schools (2,620 students total), Gilkey Elementary School accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

On demographics, Gilkey Elementary School logs that 88% of students identify as White, making the school strongly White-majority. The remainder is composed of 5% multiracial, 5% Hispanic. That mix tracks the wider county fairly closely.

Looking at the economic backdrop, Staff filings list 24 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 18.3:1 students per teacher. That figure is higher than the state norm's 15.8:1 average. An estimated 32% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. Set against Allegan County (around 43%), the school's rate is noticeably below typical.

After controlling for student poverty, Gilkey Elementary School tracks the demographic baseline. The model predicts 52.0% given the school's FRL share; actual proficiency is 40.6%.

Across the wider county, Allegan County reports that median household earnings sit near $83,283, about 27% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 5%. In all, Allegan County runs 55 public schools (combined enrollment of about 17,174 students), of which Gilkey Elementary School is one.

The closest other public school is Plainwell Middle School, roughly 0.6 miles away. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. On composite proficiency, Gilkey Elementary School comes 4th of 6 in the immediate cluster, higher than the nearby-schools average of 40.1%.

Geographically, the school is in a small-town area.

Trend over the last 7 years. Gilkey Elementary School's enrollment has changed only slightly since 2018, when it stood at 442 (now 439).

On this page, posts here usually surface around science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.