About

Northville Public Schools’ history, which has its origins in Northville High School, can be traced back 145 years. Only four years after the close of the Civil War, Northville High School — then Northville Union School — graduated its first student, Alice Beal. The lone graduate in the Class of 1869, Alice’s diploma was hand-printed on parchment by Asa Randolph, a Northville pioneer and village trustee. This number grew to nine graduates in 1910 when seven young women and two young men posed for the school’s first graduation picture. Today, Northville High School’s most recent graduates in the Class of 2022 included 612 graduates. The district currently serves more than 7,000 students enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade, as well as more than 230 students in our special education center program, and nearly 1,000 students in the district’s preschool and childcare programs.

Northville is a suburban community in southeast Michigan. Located 31 miles west of Detroit and 18 miles northeast of Ann Arbor, the Northville of today is in the heart of the state’s educational, cultural, commercial and medical centers. The city’s Victorian downtown is rich in small-town atmosphere and history. The scenic landscape of the township has attracted considerable housing development and population growth over the past 35 years. Most residents are employed in professional career fields including engineering, education, management and medicine. Combined, the population of the City of Northville and Northville Township is more than 36,000. The median household income is $101,761 and the median housing sales price is $296,000.

In terms of outcomes, Northville students consistently score above national averages on ACT, SAT and Advanced Placement assessments. The district consistently graduates more than 96 percent of its senior class and its graduates are among the top scholarship earners in Michigan. The Class of 2022 alone included 67 National Merit Scholar competitors, with 32 finalists and 24 commended students, along with 2 U.S. Presidential Scholar Program Semi-Finalists and 30 International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme Candidates. Northville Public Schools is also home to one of the largest and most successful vocal and instrumental music programs in the state, as well as a comprehensive visual arts program with work recognized at the local, state and national levels. And on our fields of play, the district’s athletic program attracts more than 1,000 high school and 800 middle school student athletes in 27 sports and on 72 teams with a significant number of all-state, all-academic teams and athletes. Whether in the classroom, on our athletic fields, in the arts or out in the community, we are proud of these accomplishments on the part of our students.

Beginning with the district’s youngest students in our nationally accredited Early Childhood Program, our child-centered curriculum meets the real needs of these early learners, providing them with the freedom to enjoy childhood by putting their physical, emotional and intellectual wellbeing first.

The district’s six elementary schools are setting the bar for strong school improvement processes, tiered intervention and support systems, and, in every school are advancing their work on building a culture of learning and leadership through the rigorous process of The Leader In Me.

Cooke School, the district’s special education center program – serving students from age 3 to 26 – continues its groundbreaking work with students, forging new pathways for these most challenged learners to have a voice, communicate with those around them, and demonstrate their learning. 

The district’s two middle schools, along with Northville High School, are fully authorized as International Baccalaureate (IB) World Schools offering the Diploma Program (DP) for highly motivated 11th and 12th graders and the Middle Years Program (MYP) for all students in grades six through 10. Northville Public Schools also has twice been named to the College Board’s AP District Honor Roll in recognition of increasing access to Advanced Placement courses, while continuing our strong student performance on AP assessments. 

Embedded within each of the district’s schools, and together with parents and the community, our students also have the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of athletic, artistic, and extracurricular programs, and take part in a powerful network of service learning and community service experiences.

We recognize that the world our learners live in – and will eventually work in – is rapidly changing. Many historians have labeled the 20th century the “American Century.” However, at the dawn of this third millennium, America is finding herself wrestling with the changing demands of an interconnected, increasingly diverse, and technologically-rich workspace. Globalization has forced evolving workspace skill demands that require both a strong foundation of traditional content knowledge, as well as increased competencies in collaboration, communication, problem-solving, creativity, and digital literacy. Now, almost 15 years into this new millennium, this century has already formed its own history and complexities, which will shape the way learners and the schools that serve them interact.

According to the Center for Public Education, new forces are reshaping the workspace —automation, flattening of organizations, and demographics. Technology has automated routine tasks and provided unique ways to supervise and structure management within organizations. As well, an increasingly diverse America has provided new challenges to education as society becomes more mobile and as the income gap continues to widen.

Our student body is more diverse today than ever before with more than 1,000 of our students coming from homes where a language other than English is spoken, a 69 percent increase when compared to five years ago. There are more than 50 languages other than English spoken in our students’ homes including Chinese, Arabic, Korean, Hindi, Spanish, Japanese, Guajarati, Punjabi, Urdu, and Romanian. With such diversity in our student and community populations, students are learning to be increasingly open-minded and reflective as they bridge cultural differences to build understanding and listen to one another.

As the explosion in technology brings the world close together, we at Northville Public Schools strive to ensure that students today – and all those who come after them – will be ready to compete in a global society by unleashing the potential of our young people as engaged learners, and contributing, passionate and compassionate world citizens.

We are redefining Northville Public Schools' vision for what the school district will look like five to 10 years down the road in order to maximize the success of our students in the 21st century. In October 2013, 35 members of the Northville community came together to discuss the impact of the changing 21st century landscape on the education of Northville students. The group’s diversity contributed to a thoughtful and engaging exchange of ideas as students, parents, teachers, administrators, Board of Education members, and alumni shared their insights about what education will need to look like for this generation of learners and beyond.

The dialog continued in a November 2013 Board of Education Study session, and with teachers through facilitated workshops focused on the question of what teaching and learning should look like in the next decade to provide the best opportunities for success in a rapidly changing global environment. We have been supported in this groundbreaking work by Dr. Shawn K. Smith and Modern Teacher®, whose work is focused on maximizing teaching effectiveness in the digital world, through 21st century instructional design and delivery grounded in educational history and research.

Our vision work was expanded in spring 2014, as more stakeholders were asked to explore the key attributes of 21st century learning. They joined in this discussion through a visioning activity facilitated by district leaders, together with students, at PTA and staff meetings across the district, as well as with student, business and community leaders. Throughout this effort, we have focused on crafting a vision that invigorates the culture of our district, deepens our work, and goes beyond simply having words on a page.