Summary:
Schools in zip code 61252 include three public schools in Fulton, Illinois, serving kindergarten through grade 12, with 933 students combined: Fulton Elementary School, River Bend Middle School, and Fulton High School. Chronic absenteeism was below the statewide rate at all three: 16% at elementary, 21% at middle, and 21% at high school, compared with 24% statewide. The clearest overall academic standout is River Bend Middle, which scored above the state in every reported IAR grade and subject, as well as in eighth-grade science.
River Bend Middle School leads the current IAR results: its all-grades ELA was 66% versus 56% statewide, and math was 41% versus 40%. Its eighth-grade science was also ahead, at 56% versus 52%. Fulton High School stands out for ELA and science, but math is its clearest concern: 11th-grade ACT ELA was 64%, 14 points above the state, while ACT math was 35%, 5 points below; 10th-grade PreACT math was 26%, 10 points below. Fulton Elementary School is mixed rather than uniformly weak: all-grades ELA was 7 points below the state and math just 1 point below, while fourth-grade math was 10 points below and fifth-grade science was 9 points above.
Recent science and high-school ELA results improved notably. Elementary fifth-grade science rose from 48% in 2024–2025 to 56% in 2025–2026, and middle-school eighth-grade science rose from 37% to 56%; high-school 11th-grade ACT ELA increased 16 points, from 48% to 64%. SchoolDigger’s statewide percentile ranking rose from the 50th to the 68th percentile for the high school, while elementary fell from the 48th to the 41st and middle from the 64th to the 59th. In 2024–2025, student-teacher ratios were 14.5 at elementary, 13.4 at middle, and 12.2 at high school; free/reduced lunch eligible shares were 42%, 47%, and 38%, respectively. These are useful context, not explanations of results. Because the schools serve different grades and high school tests differ, cross-school score comparisons are not fully like-for-like.
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