Summary:
ZIP code 60463 has one middle school, Independence Junior High School, serving grades 6–8 and enrolling 236 students. With no other middle school in the ZIP code for comparison, its results are best understood against Illinois and its district, Palos Heights School District 128. The clearest overall finding is that Independence scored above the state in ELA, math, and eighth-grade science in 2025–2026, though the size of that advantage varied by subject.
ELA is the school’s standout subject, while math is its closest result to the state. In 2025–2026, 82% of students were proficient in ELA, 26 percentage points above Illinois; eighth-grade science proficiency was 67%, 15 points above the state; and math proficiency was 47%, 8 points above. In the district comparison, however, math was a relative weakness: Independence’s 47% was 5 points below the district’s 52%, while its ELA result of 82% was 6 points above the district’s 76%. All six reported grade-and-subject results exceeded the state result for the same grade. Eighth-grade ELA was strongest at 90%, compared with 63% statewide, while sixth-grade math was closest to the state at 41% versus 36%.
Results declined from the previous year even as state results rose: Independence fell 5 points in ELA, 3 in math, and 8 in science, while the state rose 3, 1, and 7 points, respectively. The school’s advantage over Illinois therefore narrowed in all three subjects, most sharply in science, by 14 points. SchoolDigger ranked Independence at the 77th percentile—257 of 1,126 schools—and gave it four stars in 2025–2026, down from the 91st percentile and five stars the prior year. Other context measures include chronic absenteeism of 16%, below the state’s 24% but slightly above the district’s 14%; a student-teacher ratio of 10.9 for 2024–2025; and 12% free/reduced lunch eligible in 2021–2022. These context measures come from different years and do not establish what accounts for the school’s results.
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