Summary:
ZIP code 61418 has two schools in West Central CUSD 235: West Central Elementary School, serving grades K–5, and West Central High School, serving grades 9–12. The clearest academic bright spot is the elementary school’s fifth-grade science: 63% were proficient in 2025–2026, 16 percentage points above the state rate, and the school’s result rose 22 points from the previous year.
The elementary school stands out in science, but its all-grades math and ELA results were below state rates: 26% versus 40% in math, a 14-point gap, and 44% versus 56% in ELA, a 12-point gap. The high school’s reported results were below state rates in every available subject-and-grade comparison. Its closest result was ninth-grade ELA, at 46% compared with 62% statewide, 15 points lower; its largest gap was ninth-grade science, at 24% versus 47%, 23 points lower. Chronic absenteeism also marks a sharp difference: it was 34% at the high school, 11 points above the state rate, compared with 14% at the elementary school, 9 points below it.
Results are moving in different directions rather than improving uniformly. Elementary ELA proficiency rose 13 points year over year, while math fell 3 points; the high school’s gap to the state narrowed in four of seven matched comparisons, and across both schools it narrowed in six of ten. SchoolDigger ranked the elementary school 1,196th of 1,737 schools statewide (31st percentile) and the high school 513th of 620 (17th percentile) in 2025–2026. Their student-teacher ratios were similar—11.2 and 11.4—while their 2024–2025 free/reduced lunch eligible shares were 54% and 62%, respectively. The high school also had a 79% graduation rate, 11 points below the state, and a 5% dropout rate, 3 points above it.
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