Pine Avenue Elementary School

Pine Avenue Elementary School, a compact elementary school in ALMA, Michigan, part of Alma Public Schools, teaches 265 students, covering grades 4 through 5. Enrollment runs roughly 28% leaner than the state mean of about 369.

Within Alma Public Schools, which oversees 5 schools and 1,815 students, Pine Avenue Elementary School is one campus in the system.

Demographically, Pine Avenue Elementary School shows that 85% of students identify as White, making the school strongly White-majority. Beyond that, the school reports 12% Hispanic. That composition is broadly in line with Gratiot County as a whole.

On the income-and-resources front, On paper, Pine Avenue Elementary School has 17 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 15.6:1. That tracks the state average closely. An estimated 78% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. By comparison, Gratiot County runs at roughly 64%, so the school's eligibility rate is above the surrounding baseline.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Pine Avenue Elementary School sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 31.5%; this one delivers 35.6%.

In the broader community, the surrounding county (Gratiot County) shows that the typical household earns roughly $63,556 per year, roughly 19% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 9% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Gratiot County's 24 public schools (combined enrollment of about 5,245 students), Pine Avenue Elementary School is one campus in the mix.

The closest other public school is GIRESD Center Programs, roughly 0.3 miles away. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Pine Avenue Elementary School. Among the 4 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Pine Avenue Elementary School ranks 2nd on composite proficiency, above the local average of 33.1%.

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

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count decreased 15%: 312 students in 2018 compared to 265 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio pulled in from 17.2:1 in 2018 to 15.6:1 today.

On this page, the feed for Pine Avenue Elementary School typically covers fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.