Southwest Elementary Academia Bilingue

Southwest Elementary Academia Bilingue is an elementary-level community of substantial scale in GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan, run under Grand Rapids Public Schools, teacheing 661 students in grades pre-K through 6. That puts it 79% bigger than the typical public school in Michigan, which averages around 369 students.

Southwest Elementary Academia Bilingue is one of 50 schools operated by Grand Rapids Public Schools, a district that works with 13,903 students overall.

Looking at the student body, Southwest Elementary Academia Bilingue logs that 84% of students identify as Hispanic, making the school strongly Hispanic-majority. Other groups include 7% White, 6% Black, 2% multiracial. That is noticeably more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 12%.

On the resource side, Southwest Elementary Academia Bilingue shows 31 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 21.1:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 15.8:1 average. About 68% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. By comparison, Kent County runs at roughly 47%, so the school's eligibility rate is higher than the surrounding baseline.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, On a poverty-adjusted basis, Southwest Elementary Academia Bilingue sits in the bottom 10% statewide. Predicted proficiency from the FRL regression is roughly 36.1%; actual is 18.1%, a gap of -18.1 points.

In the area at large, Kent County reports that median household income runs about $82,631, roughly 41% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 6%. Southwest Elementary Academia Bilingue is one of 239 public schools in Kent County (combined enrollment of about 97,253 students).

Southwest MiddleHigh Academia Bilingue is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.2 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Southwest Elementary Academia Bilingue.

The school occupies an inner-city site.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count ticked down 19%: 816 students in 2018 compared to 661 in 2025. The Black share of enrollment decreased from 11% to 6% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio rose from 19.8:1 in 2018 to 21.1:1 today.

Inside the community feed, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.