Ottawa Elementary School

Ottawa Elementary School is one of the compact elementary-level communitys in PETOSKEY, Michigan, operated by Public Schools of Petoskey, with 250 students on its rolls from grades pre-K through 5. That puts it 32% smaller than the typical public school in Michigan, which averages around 369 students.

Within Public Schools of Petoskey, which oversees 7 schools and 2,416 students, Ottawa Elementary School is one campus in the system.

In terms of who attends, Ottawa Elementary School lists that nearly all students (88%) are White; the rest comes out to 6% multiracial, 3% Native American, 2% Hispanic. That mix tracks the wider county fairly closely.

Looking at the economic backdrop, The school lists 21 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 11.9:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 15.8:1 average. An estimated 41% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. That share is above Emmet County's rate of about 32%.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, Ottawa Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 48.2%, the actual is 43.8%, a residual of -4.4 points.

Around the school, ACS estimates for Emmet County put median household earnings sit near $78,112, 42% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 6%. Across Emmet County's 16 public schools (combined enrollment of about 4,138 students), Ottawa Elementary School is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Petoskey High School, around 0.4 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Ottawa Elementary School comes 5th of 5 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 57.6%.

Ottawa Elementary School operates from a town-center location.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Ottawa Elementary School has edged down 20%, going from 311 students in 2018 to 250 in 2025. Class-load math has tightened: from 16.5:1 in 2018 to 11.9:1 in 2025.

On this page, the feed for Ottawa Elementary School typically covers enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. The community welcomes input from current and former families.