Best Public Schools in Cowden, IL

The city of Cowden, Illinois has only one public high school, Cowden-Herrick Junior/Senior High School, which serves grades 6-12 with a total enrollment of 170 students. The school's performance has been inconsistent, with its statewide ranking fluctuating between 169th out of 697 Illinois high schools in 2023-2024 and 592nd out of 699 in 2022-2023. While the school outperforms the state average in English Language Arts and 8th grade science, it struggles in mathematics, particularly at the high school level.

Cowden-Herrick Junior/Senior High School faces several challenges, including a high chronic absenteeism rate of 25.4% and a large percentage (67.06%) of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating a socioeconomically disadvantaged student population. The school's small size may also impact the availability of resources and specialized support services. Despite these challenges, the school's spending per student was $15,416 in the 2023-2024 school year, and it maintained a relatively low student-teacher ratio of 10.3 to 1.

Overall, the data suggests that Cowden-Herrick CUSD 3A, the district that oversees Cowden-Herrick Junior/Senior High School, has room for improvement in terms of academic performance and addressing the needs of its student population. The school's fluctuating ranking and uneven test scores indicate that the district may need to focus on strengthening its mathematics curriculum and addressing the high chronic absenteeism rate to improve overall student outcomes.