Summary:
Pekin Central School District 303 has one school, Pekin Community High School, serving grades 9–12 in Pekin, Illinois, with 1,712 students. The school’s graduation and dropout figures compare favorably with Illinois, but chronic absenteeism is the most serious concern: 41% of students were chronically absent in 2025–2026, compared with 24% statewide.
There is no second school in the list to compare with Pekin, so it is the only school at both the top and bottom of this group. Compared with Illinois in 2025–2026, Pekin was below the state in all nine reported test comparisons. Its closest result was 10th-grade PreACT ELA, with 52% proficient versus 54% statewide, a 2-point gap; its largest gap was 11th-grade ACT science, at 34% versus 48%, or 14 points below. ELA was the school’s strongest subject profile: its average across the three ELA results was 50%, about 5 points below the state average, while the average gaps were 10 points in math and 9 in science.
Results improved in some grades but not others. From 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, all three 10th-grade results improved at Pekin and their gaps with the state narrowed; all three 9th-grade gaps widened. Across the nine matched results, Pekin’s average rose from 39% to 40%, and its gap with the state narrowed by about 1 point. SchoolDigger’s statewide percentile ranking fell from 51 in 2023–2024 to 36 in 2025–2026. Graduation was 92% versus 90% statewide, while dropout was 1% versus 2%. Other context: 45% of students were free/reduced lunch eligible in 2024–2025, and the student–teacher ratio was 15.5 that year.
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