Martin Luther King Jr Elementary

As a cozy elementary campus in BENTON HARBOR, Michigan, Martin Luther King Jr Elementary instructs 229 students from grades 1 through 3, part of Benton Harbor Area Schools. That puts it 38% below the typical public school in Michigan, which averages around 369 students.

Benton Harbor Area Schools runs 6 schools in total, collectively educating 1,227 students. Martin Luther King Jr Elementary is one of those campuses.

On demographics, Martin Luther King Jr Elementary lists that the student body is overwhelmingly Black (86%); the rest comes out to 7% Hispanic, 3% White, 3% multiracial. That is meaningfully more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 13%.

In terms of school funding signals, The school currently runs with 22 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 10.4:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 15.8:1 average. Roughly 89% of students at Martin Luther King Jr Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. Set against Berrien County (around 55%), the school's rate is noticeably above typical.

In the surrounding community, the surrounding county (Berrien County) logs that the typical household earns roughly $65,425 per year, roughly 31% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 11%. In all, Berrien County runs 75 public schools (combined enrollment of about 21,027 students), of which Martin Luther King Jr Elementary is one.

Discovery Enrichment Center is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.1 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Martin Luther King Jr Elementary.

The school occupies a residential site.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count contracted 33%: 342 students in 2018 compared to 229 in 2025. Black enrollment moved from 96% to 86% across the same window. The student-to-teacher ratio pulled in from 19.0:1 in 2018 to 10.4:1 today.

Inside the community feed, posts here usually surface around classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Members of the school community can share what they know.