Villa Grove CUSD 302

Villa Grove CUSD 302 serves students in three schools: Villa Grove Elementary School (PK–6, 310 students), Villa Grove Junior High School (grades 7–8, 95 students) and Villa Grove High School (grades 9–12, 194 students). Because the schools serve different grades and the high school uses different tests, their results do not support a fair overall school ranking. The most concerning finding is the sharp drop in the high school’s grade 11 ACT results, which were below state results in all three subjects in 2025–2026.

Villa Grove Junior High School stands out in IAR English: its all-grades result was 67%, 11 points above the state, though its math result was 29%, 11 points below. Villa Grove Elementary School had notable fifth-grade results in ELA (68%, 14 points above the state) and science (58%, 10 points above); its sixth-grade math result was weaker, at 25%, 11 points below the state. At Villa Grove High School, grade 11 ACT proficiency was 41% in ELA, 26% in math and 24% in science—9, 14 and 24 points below state results, respectively.

Results changed unevenly over time. At Villa Grove High School, grade 11 ACT results fell from 60% to 41% in ELA, 40% to 26% in math and 55% to 24% in science between 2024–2025 and 2025–2026; state results changed little. Elementary all-grades math dropped from 43% to 37%, moving from 5 points above the state to 3 below. SchoolDigger ranks the district 504th of 738 statewide, in the 32nd percentile, with two stars; school percentiles shifted from 65 to 48 at Elementary, 72 to 34 at High, and 46 to 49 at Junior High from 2023–2024 to 2025–2026. In 2024–2025, free/reduced lunch eligible shares were 57% at Elementary, 55% at Junior High and 48% at High; student–teacher ratios were 13.0, 14.6 and 11.8, respectively. High’s chronic absenteeism was 28% in 2025–2026, while its graduation rate was 91%, compared with 90% statewide.