Summary:
Bushnell-Prairie City Junior High School is the only middle school in Bushnell Prairie City CUSD 170; it serves grades 5–8 and has 131 students. In 2025–2026, its all-grades results were below Illinois averages in both English language arts (37% versus 56%) and mathematics (20% versus 40%). The most important finding is that the gaps appear across subjects and are especially large in eighth grade.
There is no meaningful top-to-bottom school comparison because this is a one-school list. Within the school, fifth-grade science stands out as closest to the state result: 42%, compared with 48% statewide, a 6-point gap. Eighth-grade results are the clearest concern: ELA was 33% versus 63% statewide, 30 points lower, and science was 31% versus 52%, 21 points lower. ELA gaps also varied by grade, from 18 points in grade 6 to 30 points in grade 8. These differences show why the all-grades results alone do not tell the whole story.
Recent changes were mixed: all-grades mathematics rose about 2 points, from 18% to 20%, while its gap with the state narrowed by 1 point; ELA stayed near 37% as the state improved, and its gap widened by 3 points. Eighth-grade science fell 12 points, from 43% to 31%, while the state rose 7 points, widening the gap by 19 points. SchoolDigger’s reported percentile dropped from 34 in 2024–2025 to 11 in 2025–2026, and it assigned a one-star rating for 2025–2026. As context, 58% of students were free/reduced lunch eligible in 2024–2025, and the student-teacher ratio was 9.4 that year; chronic absenteeism was 19% in 2025–2026, below the state’s 24% and the district’s 27%. These figures describe the school but do not explain its results.
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