Summary:
Cobden SUD 17 has three schools serving prekindergarten through grade 12: Cobden Elementary (PK–5), Cobden Junior High (6–8), and Cobden High (9–12), with 454 students combined. Results vary by grade and subject, so no school is an across-the-board leader; the clearest academic bright spot is Junior High’s eighth-grade performance.
Cobden Junior High stands out in current ELA: its all-grades result was 67%, 11 percentage points above the state’s 56%, and eighth graders reached 82%, 19 points above the state. Its eighth-grade math and science results were also above state levels by 11 and 9 points. Cobden Elementary was above the state in all-grades ELA (60% versus 56%) and slightly above in math (40% versus 40%); its fourth- and fifth-grade ELA results were 8 and 10 points higher than state results. Cobden High is the weaker performer against state test results overall: its reported current ACT and PreACT results were below the state, by 2 to 18 points, although its graduation rate was slightly higher (90% versus 90%, a 0-point difference when rounded; the reported gap was 0.4 points).
Recent trends are mixed: both IAR schools improved in all-grades ELA from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, with Junior High’s advantage over the state growing by 6 points; math’s state-relative position improved at Junior High but slipped by 1 point at Elementary. Science moved sharply in opposite directions: Elementary fifth-grade science fell 16 points, while Junior High eighth-grade science rose 42 points. SchoolDigger ranks Elementary at the 50th percentile (3 stars), Junior High at the 61st (3 stars), and High at the 38th (2 stars); High’s rank has fallen from the 61st percentile in 2023–2024. Student-teacher ratios range from 9.8 at High to 11.6 at Junior High. Free/reduced lunch eligible shares in 2024–2025 were 93%–96% across the schools, a close range that provides context but does not explain their differing results. These comparisons are limited by the schools’ different grade spans and assessments, and some scores are state-suppressed.
Thank you for your feedback!