Summary:
Zip code 61081 includes six public schools in Sterling—four elementary schools, one middle school and one high school—serving pre-K through grade 12 and enrolling 3,253 students. Results vary by school, subject and grade, rather than pointing to one uniformly strong or weak pattern. The clearest bright spot is Sterling High School, whose 2025–2026 grade 9–10 PreACT results were above state results in all six supplied comparisons.
Sterling High School led on those PreACT comparisons by 7 to 18 percentage points; on the grade 11 ACT, it was 1 point above the state in ELA and 2 points above in science, but 1 point below in math. Its graduation rate was 86%, 4 points below the state. Among the elementary schools, Washington Elementary had higher grades 3–5 averages than Lincoln Elementary by 5 points in ELA and 3 in math. Challand Middle School was closer to the state in ELA (54% vs. 56%, a 2-point gap) than in math (30% vs. 40%, a 10-point gap). Lincoln had some subject-and-grade strengths, including higher grade 4 and 5 math and grade 5 science than Washington.
Recent results and rankings also show different directions: SchoolDigger’s percentile ranking for Sterling High School rose from 47 in 2023–2024 to 77 in 2025–2026, while Challand Middle School fell from 42 to 30, Washington Elementary from 59 to 38, and Lincoln Elementary from 51 to 33. Elementary grade 5 science improved at both schools, but the elementary all-grades math gap with the state widened. As context, all six schools reported free/reduced lunch eligible figures for 2024–2025, ranging from 54% to 70%; these are descriptive differences, not explanations for results. Test scores are supplied for four schools; Jefferson Elementary School and Franklin Elementary School have no test-score results in the supplied data.
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