Summary:
The seven schools in Urbana School District 116 serve kindergarten through grade 12: five elementary schools (K–5), one middle school (grades 7–8), and one high school (grades 9–12), with 3,953 students altogether. The clearest district-wide concern is elementary proficiency: in 2025–2026, the five-school average was 25% in ELA and 15% in math, compared with state averages of 56% and 40%—gaps of 31 and 24 points. Attendance is another concern: chronic absenteeism at Urbana High School was 45%, 22 points above the state figure.
Leal Elementary School led the elementary schools in all-grades results, with 40% in ELA and 29% in math; Dr Preston L Williams Junior Elementary School had the lowest results, at 15% and 7%. The difference between them was 25 points in ELA and 22 in math. Leal also stood out in fourth-grade ELA, at 55%—close to the 56% state result—and fifth-grade science, at 48%, about 1 point above the state. Urbana Middle School scored 28% in ELA and 14% in math; at the high school, ACT results were strongest in ELA (37%), followed by science (34%) and math (25%).
Results changed unevenly over time. At Urbana Middle, all-grades ELA rose 7 points and math rose 3 points from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, while its state gaps narrowed in both subjects. Across four elementary schools with results in both years, average ELA rose 6 points, but average math was essentially flat. The elementary schools reported free/reduced lunch eligible shares for 2024–2025 ranging from 60% at Leal to 89% at Williams; M L King Junior Elementary School was at 85%, Yankee Ridge Multilingual School at 63%, and Thomas Paine Elementary School at 72%—context that does not by itself explain school results. SchoolDigger’s percentile rank for Leal shifted from the 51st percentile in 2023–2024 to the 25th in 2025–2026, even as its latest ELA score edged up from the prior year.
Thank you for your feedback!