Best Public Schools in Summit, IL

Summit, Illinois, has five schools—three elementary schools, one middle school and one high school—serving students from elementary through high school, with results that vary considerably across schools and grades. The most important finding for families is that Dr Donald Wharton Elementary School stands out among the elementary schools, while Otis P Graves Elementary School is consistently lower on the reported elementary results.

Wharton led the elementary schools in all-grades results, with 78% in ELA and 51% in math—about 22 and 11 percentage points above state rates. Otis recorded 40% in ELA and 33% in math, about 16 and 7 points below the state. Walsh Elementary School was near the state rate in ELA and 10 points above it in math, at 57% and 50%. Heritage Middle School had a sharp grade-level split: 8th-grade ELA was 73%, 10 points above the state, while 7th-grade ELA was 28%, 29 points below. Argo Community High School was below the state in all three 11th-grade ACT subjects, with gaps of about 2 to 8 points.

Elementary averages moved closer to state results: the average ELA gap shifted from about 4 points below the state in 2024–2025 to 2 points above in 2025–2026, while the math gap moved from about 1 point below to 5 points above. That improvement was not universal: Otis’s math gap widened, while Argo’s ACT gaps narrowed but remained below state rates. SchoolDigger’s ranking for Wharton rose from the 21st to the 75th percentile over the listed years; Walsh rose from the 40th to the 60th. As context, in 2024–2025 Otis and Walsh reported 97% and 96% free/reduced lunch eligible, while Wharton reported all students receive free meals (Community Eligibility); student-teacher ratios were 13.3 at Otis and 8.4 at both Walsh and Wharton. These school-level figures do not explain why results differ, and year-to-year scores reflect different student groups.