Elementary Schools in Whiteside School District 115

Whiteside Elementary School is the only elementary school in Whiteside School District 115, serving prekindergarten through grade 4 and enrolling 680 students. In 2025–2026, 41% of students were proficient in ELA and 30% in math, below state results of 56% and 40%, respectively. The clearest concern is fourth-grade math: just 22% were proficient, compared with 42% statewide.

There are no other schools in the area to compare, so Whiteside is both the highest- and lowest-performing school in this group. Its relative strength is math compared with the district: Whiteside’s 30% proficiency was 8 percentage points above the district’s 22%, though still 10 points below the state. ELA is a more pronounced concern relative to the state: Whiteside’s 41% was 16 points lower than the state’s 56%, and 4 points below the district. The grade-level results highlight a particularly large fourth-grade math gap: proficiency was 40% in grade 3 and 22% in grade 4, while the state results were 49% and 42%. Whiteside’s gap to the state was 10 points in grade 3 and 20 points in grade 4.

Results have moved farther from state levels in both subjects. Whiteside’s ELA result remained about 41% from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026 as the state rose from 53% to 56%, widening the gap by 3 points. Math fell from 35% to 30% while the state rose from 39% to 40%, widening the gap by 6 points. SchoolDigger’s ranking for Whiteside also declined, from the 46th percentile in 2023–2024 to the 20th percentile in 2025–2026, a 26-point drop. As context, chronic absenteeism was 16% in 2025–2026, below the district’s 17% and the state’s 24%; 63% of students were free/reduced lunch eligible in 2024–2025, and the student-teacher ratio was 14.1:1 that year. These figures describe one school and do not show that any contextual measure causes its results.