Summary:
Waltham CCSD 185 has one listed school, Waltham Elementary School, serving pre-K through grade 8 in Waltham and enrolling 246 students. With only one school, there is no within-area school-to-school comparison. In 2025–26, the school’s all-grades proficiency was above Illinois in both subjects: 75% in ELA versus 56% statewide, an 18-point advantage, and 50% in math versus 40%, a 10-point advantage. The most important finding is that ELA is the school’s clearest broad strength, while math is also above the state result.
Waltham Elementary School stands out most in upper-grade ELA and grade 8 science, while grade 5 is the clearest weak spot. Grade 8 ELA was 95%, 32 points above the state; grade 7 was 92%, 34 points above. Grade 8 science was 76%, 24 points above Illinois. By contrast, grade 5 ELA was 50%, 5 points below the state, and grade 5 math was 33%, 3 points below. The pattern is not uniformly strong across grades, despite the above-state all-grades averages; grade 7 and 8 math results are suppressed.
Results and SchoolDigger’s relative ranking have generally moved upward, though the ranking is not a test-score measure. From 2024–25 to 2025–26, all-grades ELA rose 4 points and math rose 4 points, while the school’s state advantages grew by 1 and 3 points, respectively. SchoolDigger’s school percentile rose from 58th in 2023–24 to 69th in 2025–26; its current district listing is 167th of 738, in the 77th percentile, with 4 stars. Chronic absenteeism was 2% in 2025–26, compared with 24% statewide, a 21-point lower rate. The student-teacher ratio was 10.4 to 1 in 2024–25, and 19% of students were free/reduced lunch eligible in 2021–22.
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