Local school districts can once again take pride in their growth over the past year as the Illinois Report Card indicates strong performance amid the continued, steady return to pre-pandemic performance.

The report card, organized by the Illinois Department of Education, is a compilation of data on various factors which provides insight into how the state, districts and individual schools are performing and changing from year to year.

While schools statewide show improvement in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, districts in Monroe County are generally stronger.

Schools throughout the state are given a summative designation based on a number of performance factors.

Exemplary schools are those performing in the top 10 percent of schools statewide with no underperforming student groups, and commendable schools are those others with no underperforming groups. Targeted and comprehensive schools are further lower performing.

Across the state, 377 schools were rated exemplary, 2,788 commendable, 379 targeted and 145 comprehensive.

Schools are also evaluated on their testing performance, namely the Illinois Assessment of Readiness and the SAT which respectively provide insight on the performance of students from grades 3-8 and high school students.

Throughout the state, 41 percent of students were rated as meeting or exceeding expectations in the English Language Arts portion of the IAR while 28 percent of students met or exceeded expectations with the math portion.

For the SAT, 31 percent performed well in the ELA portion and 26 percent met expectations in math.

Graduation rates in the state stood at 88 percent this past year, and chronic truancy – denoting students who miss 5 percent or more of school days per year without a valid excuse – was at 20 percent.

Regarding Illinois teachers, the state had a 90 percent retention rate – the three-year average percentage of teachers returning to work at the same school – while 97 percent of teachers were evaluated as proficient or excellent.

As mentioned, local performance is generally strong, with similar growth and performance to previous years.

Of Waterloo’s five public schools, four were rated as commendable with Waterloo High School receiving an exemplary rating.

On IAR ELA performance, 64 percent of students met or exceeded expectations in 2024 compared to 58.4 in 2023.

Math performance showed slightly less improvement at 50.9 percent this year compared to 49.6 percent last year.

SAT performance in Waterloo stayed rather flat. In ELA, 43.2 percent of students performed at or above expectations this year compared to 43.3 last year, and 39.5 percent of students did so in math this year compared to 40.4 last year.

Waterloo’s graduation rate sits at 94.8 percent this year, up slightly from 93 percent last year.

Chronic absenteeism is down at 10.6 percent compared to 13.3 in 2023.

Waterloo also saw a teacher retention rate of 91 percent this year, with 100 percent of district educators evaluated as proficient or excellent.

Waterloo grades 6-12 curriculum coordinator John Schmieg spoke at the recent meeting of the Waterloo School Board, offering his assessment of the district’s performance on the report card as he does each year.

Schmieg identified a number of “points of pride,” noting that the high school’s graduation rate is the highest it’s been in a decade and praising the district’s summative designations.

He also boasted about the district’s ELA and math rankings in the state.

“If we just look at pre-kindergarten through 12th grade unit districts, our school district scored number 18 out of those 380 in English language arts,” Schmieg said. “In math, we rank number 15 out of those 380 unit school districts.”

Schmieg also noted the district’s competitive performance with nearby districts, noting the amount of work that goes into the performance of Waterloo schools.

“There’s a lot of hard work that goes into that, a lot of hard decisions,” Schmieg said. “I’m always proud to work here and come up here because I always get to talk about very good stuff. I’ve been here for 20 years, and there really hasn’t been a year where we haven’t had a whole lot of points of pride. A lot of good tradition here and a lot of good education.”

Columbia’s school district also had strong a performance this past year.

Just as in Waterloo, each of the district’s schools received a commendable rating save for Columbia High School which was rated as exemplary.

Concerning IAR performance, 61.7 percent of Columbia students met or exceeded expectations in ELA, a notable increase from the 49.8 percent last year.

Math also showed great improvement as 55 percent of students met expectations in 2024 compared to 46.1 in 2023.

Columbia saw further growth in its students’ SAT performance. In ELA, 43.6 percent of students met expectations, up from 38.8 percent.

In math, 41.8 percent of students performed strongly over 34.7 percent in 2023.

The graduation rate was largely the same compared to last year: 95.9 percent compared to 95.8 percent.

Chronic absenteeism dropped from 7.5 percent last year to 6.5 percent this year.

Among district teachers, Columbia had a 91 percent retention rate, and 99 percent of its educators were rated as proficient or excellent.

Columbia Assistant Superintendent of Schools Amanda Ganey spoke with the Republic-Times to offer her initial takeaways on the report card, though analysis and comparisons with other schools will continue as the district uses the data to adjust the curriculum.

Ganey noted Columbia’s summative designations, pointing out it is not only based on academic performance.

She particularly acknowledged the high school and its exemplary rating which seemed to be impacted primarily by the high graduation rate.

“That can be something that we look at as how are we preparing our students as they transition out of high school? What secondary transition opportunities are we offering them?” Ganey said. “Because we have such a strong graduation rate that is such a huge factor in getting an exemplary, and it’s one of our biggest accountability factors.”

Ganey also spoke to how information from the report card will play a role as the district develops and alters its curriculum and other elements for next year.

“I think the most important part of any type of academic achievement is not that we’re done,” Ganey said. “You’re never done. It’s where are you at and how can you move forward and how can you continue to do better? And I think that’s what we’re doing as a district with our school improvement plan, with our continued discussions on student achievement data and all of the contributing factors that affect your achievement.”

As the smallest district in the county, Valmeyer’s performance on the report card was more mixed.

The district’s elementary, junior high and high school each received a commendable rating.

On the IAR, Valmeyer’s ELA performance saw 23.5 percent of students meet or exceed expectations, up from 11.9 percent last year.

District IAR math performance was slightly down from 2023, from 17.1 percent to 13.1 percent.

On the SAT, 40 percent of students performed well in ELA compared to 34.3 percent last year.

Like the IAR, Valmeyer’s SAT math assessment saw a drop from 22.9 percent to 16.6 percent.

Valmeyer High School’s graduation rate stood at 91.4 this past year, though the previous year stood out with a 100 percent graduation rate.

Chronic truancy information for the district was unavailable.

Valmeyer’s teachers had a retention rate of 88 percent while 100 percent of them were rated as proficient or excellent.

Further data on state and local schools can be found at illinoisreportcard.com.