Summary:
Tuscola CUSD 301 has one listed middle school, East Prairie Middle School, serving grades 5–8 with 271 students. With no other middle schools in the list, the clearest comparisons are with Illinois and the district. The most important finding is that East Prairie’s 2025–2026 all-grade ELA proficiency was well above the state rate: 70% compared with 56%, a 14-point advantage.
East Prairie is the area’s only school, so there is no local school-to-school top or bottom. Its all-grade math result was below the state rate, at 36% compared with 40%, a 4-point deficit. Results differ considerably by grade: sixth grade was a bright spot, with ELA at 77% versus 59% statewide and math at 50% versus 36%. In contrast, seventh- and eighth-grade math were 10 and 7 points below state rates. Fifth-grade ELA was also below the state rate, by 5 points.
Over time, ELA remained nearly level at 70% in both 2024–2025 and 2025–2026, while the state rate rose from 53% to 56%; the school’s advantage narrowed from 17 points to 14. Math fell from 37% to 36%, and its deficit versus the state widened from 1 point to 4. SchoolDigger’s statewide percentile ranking also declined, from 72 in 2023–2024 and 71 in 2024–2025 to 62 in 2025–2026; its star rating went from 4 to 3. Other context: the student–teacher ratio was 11.3 in 2024–2025, and 43% of students were free/reduced lunch eligible that school year. Chronic absenteeism was 14% in 2025–2026, compared with 24% statewide and 15% in the district. These context measures describe the school but do not explain its test results.
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