Summary:
The city of Mounds, Illinois has only one high school, Meridian High School, which serves grades 6-12 and is part of the Meridian CUSD 101 district. The school has consistently ranked in the bottom half of Illinois high schools, with a ranking of 667 out of 698 schools in the 2024-2025 school year. Meridian High School's performance on standardized tests is significantly below state averages, with only 14.9% of students proficient or better in English Language Arts and just 1.5% proficient in mathematics, compared to state averages of 53.1% and 38.5%, respectively.
Despite the school's poor academic performance, it has a very high percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, at 98.57% in the 2023-2024 school year, indicating a high level of poverty in the community. Interestingly, the school's per-student spending for the 2023-2024 school year was $23,124, which is significantly higher than the state average, suggesting that additional funding alone may not be the solution to the school's performance issues. The school also has a high chronic absenteeism rate of 25.4% and a dropout rate of 2.4%, both of which are significantly higher than the state averages.
Overall, the data suggests that Meridian High School is facing significant challenges in providing a high-quality education to its students. Addressing these challenges will likely require a multi-faceted approach that addresses both academic and non-academic factors impacting student success.
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