Summary:
The 62203 zip code in Illinois is home to a single middle school, Mason/Clark Middle School, which serves students in grades 6-8. The school's performance has consistently ranked in the bottom 10-15% of Illinois middle schools, with significantly below-average proficiency rates in English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science.
Mason/Clark Middle School faces significant socioeconomic challenges, with 96.83% of its students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. The school's chronic absenteeism rate is also high, at 25.4% in the 2024-2025 school year. Despite the school's high per-student spending of $27,534 and a relatively low student-teacher ratio of 10.8 to 1, its academic performance remains well below state and district averages, suggesting that simply allocating more resources may not be enough to address the underlying issues.
The poor performance of Mason/Clark Middle School is reflective of the broader challenges facing the East St. Louis School District 189, which is ranked 759 out of 811 districts in Illinois and is rated 0 stars out of 5 by SchoolDigger. Addressing the systemic issues that contribute to the persistent underperformance of schools in this area will likely require a comprehensive, district-wide approach that addresses both school-level and district-level factors.
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