Summary:
Zip code 61571 has three elementary schools in Washington, Illinois: Central Primary School, Lincoln Grade School and J L Hensey Elementary School. All serve prekindergarten through grade 3; Central and Lincoln also serve grade 4. Their enrollments range from 262 students at Hensey to 700 at Central. The most important finding is that results vary widely by school: the top-to-bottom spread is about 26 percentage points in both ELA and math.
Central leads overall, with 65% proficient in ELA and 61% in math in 2025–2026, compared with 59% and 60% at Lincoln. Central is 9 points above the state in ELA and 21 points above in math. Hensey is lowest overall, at 40% in ELA and 35% in math—19 and 25 points below the next-lowest school, respectively. There are important grade-level differences: Lincoln leads grade 3 math at 69%, 4 points above Central and 20 points above the state; in grade 4, Lincoln and Central are close in ELA, while Central leads math by 7 points.
Recent trends are mixed: from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, the schools’ average ELA result fell about 2 points while the state rose 3; the schools’ average math result rose about 2 points, slightly more than the state’s 1-point increase. SchoolDigger ranks Central at the 73rd percentile and Lincoln at the 63rd percentile for 2025–2026; Central’s ranking has been steady, while Lincoln’s fell from the 83rd percentile the previous year. The 2024–2025 free/reduced lunch eligible measure was 20% at Central, 29% at Lincoln and 58% at Hensey, and student-teacher ratios were 16.2, 14.2 and 12.4, respectively. These are useful context, not explanations for the test results.
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