Cowden-Herrick CUSD 3A

Cowden-Herrick CUSD 3A has two schools serving kindergarten through grade 12: Cowden-Herrick Grade School (K–5) and Cowden-Herrick Junior/Senior High School (grades 6–12). In 2025–2026, both schools were well above the state in all-grades IAR English language arts (ELA), but their math results diverged sharply. The biggest takeaway is that the two-school math average is near the state rate, yet it masks one school above and one below the state.

Junior/Senior High School led in ELA, with 85% proficient compared with 77% at Grade School; both exceeded the state’s 56% rate. In math, the order reversed: Grade School reached 52%, 12 points above the state, while Junior/Senior High was at 27%, 13 points below. Grade-level results highlight the unevenness: Grade School third-grade math was 83%, 33 points above the state, while fourth-grade math was 39%, 3 points below. Junior/Senior High sixth-grade ELA was 96%, 38 points above the state. The schools serve different grade spans, so their all-grades rates are not a fully grade-matched comparison.

ELA improved at both schools from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026: by 1 point at Grade School and 8 points at Junior/Senior High. Math barely changed at Grade School, rising 1 point, but fell 15 points at Junior/Senior High. SchoolDigger’s latest overall rankings place Grade School at 474 of 1,737 Illinois schools (73rd percentile) and Junior/Senior High at 244 of 620 (61st percentile); the high school percentile rose from 47 the prior year. For 2024–2025, free/reduced lunch eligible students were 59% at Grade School and 64% at Junior/Senior High. The high school had a lower student-teacher ratio (9.8 versus 11.6), while Grade School had lower chronic absenteeism in 2025–2026 (12% versus 22%); the high school’s graduation rate was 100%.