Prairie State Education Coverage, Driven by Data
Education News & Data
Local education reporting from every corner of Illinois, grounded in Illinois Department of Education data.
Stacey Day returned to Mercer County School District 404 as deputy superintendent on July 1, to a district 65 students smaller than the one she left.
Germantown SD 60's new superintendent/principal taught junior high math in the district. He takes over a school whose enrollment barely moved over a decade in which the state's fell 10%.
Waukegan's four-year graduation rate reached 83.8% in the 2025 report, above Chicago's rate while still trailing the Illinois average.
Matched cohorts show larger graduation-rate gains for English learners and students in foster care than the statewide gain.
Altamont CUSD 10's new superintendent grew up in the town. He inherits a district that added students from 2022-23 to 2024-25, when most Illinois districts lost them.
Winnebago CUSD 323 gave up about 30 students a year through 2020-21 and about eight a year through 2024-25, then 44 in 2025-26 on the state's fall count. Michael Dugan, whose first day as interim superintendent was August 28, describes the assignment as holding the district's course for its next permanent leader.
The new superintendent of the Calumet City district says he was told as a student that he was being expelled. He arrives after a year in which the state's count of the district's students held steady at 717, following years of decline.
Jenette Fruit stepped up to lead a district that enrolled 406 students in 2025-26 after a rebound from its low. Its early learning center enrolls more children than any grade in the building, and she wants it bigger.
East St. Louis SD 189's four-year graduation rate rose from 68.7% to 84.5%, the fifth-largest gain among 199 Illinois districts with at least 100 graduates.
SEDOL's new superintendent leads a cooperative of 31 Lake County districts that enrolled 68,411 students in 2025-26, 11,258 of them with IEPs. Jennifer Thomas says the cooperative's own programs enroll about 525.
Tom Springborn became superintendent of Smithton CCSD 130 on July 1. The district enrolled 544 students in 2025-26 and held its size through a decade in which Illinois lost a tenth of its students.
Only 20 of 785 Illinois districts with complete 2020-21 to 2024-25 data lowered chronic absenteeism every year. Rochelle Twp HSD 212 posted the largest drop among them, from 57.0% to 17.2%.
CCSD 180 lost about a third of its enrollment between 2014-15 and 2024-25, most of it across two years. It climbed back after 2020-21, then lost ground in each of the last two years on the state's fall count. A new superintendent started July 1.
North Shore School District 112 lost about a sixth of its students from 2014-15 through 2024-25 and fell again in 2025-26, the most recent published year, while its grade spine remained almost perfectly level.
Indian Prairie's new superintendent says strong principals, local listening and student learning will shape the district's next strategic plan.
