Northern Hills Middle School

As a mid-sized middle school in GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan, Northern Hills Middle School teaches 515 students from grades 7 through 8, run under Forest Hills Public Schools.

Within Forest Hills Public Schools, which oversees 18 schools and 8,797 students, Northern Hills Middle School is one campus in the system.

Demographically, Northern Hills Middle School records that the largest single group is White, at 67% of enrollment. The remainder comes out to 10% Hispanic, 10% Asian, 7% multiracial, 6% Black.

Looking at school resources, Staff filings list 29 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 18.0:1 students per teacher. That tracks the state average closely. An estimated 15% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is lower than Kent County's rate of about 47%.

After controlling for student poverty, Northern Hills Middle School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 59.5%, the actual is 69.8%, a residual of +10.3 points.

Across the wider county, census data for Kent County shows median household earnings sit near $82,631, roughly 41% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 6% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Kent County's 239 public schools (combined enrollment of about 97,253 students), Northern Hills Middle School is one campus in the mix.

Northern Trails 56 School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.3 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Northern Hills Middle School comes 2nd of 4 in the immediate cluster, ahead of the nearby-schools average of 63.6%.

The school occupies a suburban site.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count contracted 13%: 591 students in 2018 compared to 515 in 2025. Over the same period, the White share decreased from 74% to 67%. Class-load math has fell: from 21.4:1 in 2018 to 18.0:1 in 2025.

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