Summary:
The city of Mount Carroll, Illinois, has only one public middle school, West Carroll Middle School, which serves grades 6-8 with a total enrollment of 181 students. The school is part of the West Carroll CUSD 314 district, which is ranked 743 out of 811 districts in Illinois and has a 0-star rating from SchoolDigger.
West Carroll Middle School's academic performance is a significant concern, with proficiency rates in English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics that are substantially below the state averages. In 2024-2025, the school's ELA proficiency rate was 27.2%, compared to the state average of 53.1%, and its Mathematics proficiency rate was 12.2%, compared to the state average of 38.5%. The school's performance has declined over the past two years, with ELA proficiency dropping from 34.5% in 2023-2024 to 27.2% in 2024-2025, and Mathematics proficiency decreasing from 9.5% to 12.2% during the same period. Additionally, the school's 8th-grade Science proficiency rate in 2024-2025 was 28.3%, which is significantly lower than the state average of 45.4%.
Further challenges facing West Carroll Middle School include a high chronic absenteeism rate of 25.4% in 2024-2025, which is quite high compared to the state's overall chronic absenteeism rate. The school also serves a population with significant socioeconomic challenges, with 66.3% of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch in 2023-2024. Despite the higher per-student spending of $15,715 and a relatively small student-teacher ratio of 12.4, the school's academic performance remains well below state averages, indicating that simply allocating more resources may not be the sole solution to improving student outcomes.
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