Riverside School District 96

Riverside School District 96 has five schools: four elementary schools serving grades 3–5 and one junior high serving grades 6–8. The schools’ reported 2025–2026 all-grades ELA and math proficiency rates are all above state rates. For families comparing schools, the central finding is that strong overall results coexist with meaningful differences by grade and subject.

L J Hauser Junior High School leads all-grades ELA at 88%, 7 percentage points above the next-highest school, Hollywood Elementary School, and 31 points above the state. Central Elementary School leads all-grades math at 76%, 4 points above the next-highest school and 36 points above the state. By grade, Hollywood stands out in third-grade ELA with 100%, while Blythe Park Elementary School has the lowest all-grades math rate, 66%, and leads fifth-grade science at 77%. A F Ames Elementary School leads reported fifth-grade math at 77%; Hollywood’s fifth-grade math score is suppressed, so it cannot be compared.

Recent trends favor science and call for attention to math: average fifth-grade science rose 11 percentage points, while the five-school math average fell 5 points even as the state rate rose 1 point. ELA changed little, rising less than 1 point on average, compared with a 3-point state increase. SchoolDigger ranks Central and Hollywood at the 94th percentile, Hauser at the 93rd, Ames at the 91st, and Blythe at the 89th; it gives four schools five stars and Blythe four stars. As context, 2024–2025 student-teacher ratios ranged from 10.8 at Hollywood to 15.4 at Ames, and free/reduced lunch eligible shares ranged from 16% at Hollywood to 31% at Ames; these measures do not explain the differences in results.