Summary:
Elementary schools in Illini Central CUSD 189 consist of one school, Illini Central Grade School, serving kindergarten through grade 5 with 264 students. In 2025–2026, its all-grades ELA result was 39%, 17 points below the state’s 56%, and its math result was 32%, 7 points below the state’s 40%; fifth-grade science was 36%, compared with 48% statewide. Chronic absenteeism was lower than the state rate: 9% versus 24%. With only one school, there is no school-to-school comparison. The most important finding is the sharp grade-level contrast: fourth grade was near state results, while fifth grade—especially in ELA—was far below.
Fourth grade was the school’s strongest showing in 2025–2026: ELA was 56.1%, just above the state’s 55.8%, and math was 41.5%, just below the state’s 42.0%. Fifth grade was the weakest: ELA was 29.5% versus 54.9% statewide, a 25-point gap, and math was 22.7% versus 36.2%, a 14-point gap. These results show why the all-grades averages do not tell the whole story: performance was close to the state in fourth grade but considerably lower in fifth grade.
Results changed unevenly over time. From 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, all-grades ELA rose from 31% to 39%, narrowing its state gap by 5 points; fifth-grade science rose from 26% to 36%, narrowing its gap by 4 points. Math fell from 36% to 32% while the state result rose from 39% to 40%, widening the gap from 2 to 7 points. The school’s average gap across ELA and math remained about 12 points in both years. SchoolDigger ranked the school 1,322nd of 1,737 in 2025–2026, at the 24th percentile with one star; its percentile ranking declined from 39th in 2023–2024 and 34th in 2024–2025, despite recent ELA and science gains. Other context: the student-teacher ratio was 10.1 in 2024–2025, and 58% of students were free/reduced lunch eligible that school year.
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