McLean County Times

The rankings of Illinois schools in meeting scholastic requirements and standards has been altered or lacking because of the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A report in the Pantagraph said the state’s annual “Illinois Report Card” was unable to present adequate comparisons to other years regarding student achievement because of the pandemic – an unprecedented event.

“This year, COVID-19 had a significant impact on the data we normally collect for the report card,” Carmen Ayala, state superintendent of education, said in the Pantagraph report.

Each year report cards are issued for schools across the state listing how they have or have not met state standards and academic and testing results. This year because of the coronavirus, things have been very different. Normal spring testing of students was cut because of school closings, and because of the pandemic no new data was collected on student attendance, student culture and climate conditions.

“A standardized method of reporting attendance was not possible in the  spring during the suspension of in-person instruction," Ayala said.  "Some schools had access to technology while other schools had paper  packets."

Also unavailable was new data on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) evaluation, the SAT (measures student readiness for college), the Dynamic Learning Maps Alternate Assessment (DLM-AA), and the Illinois Science Assessment (ISA) evaluation of student performance. New information was also lacking on growth percentiles, participation rates and achievement gaps.

Nevertheless, nine schools in McLean County held “exemplary” status remaining among the top 10% of schools. These were Carlock, Towanda, Prairieland Grove, Lexington, Olympia North, Hayworth elementary schools and the Tri-Valley High School in Downs. Also ranked as exemplary were Prairie Central Upper Elementary School, Northwest Elementary School, Dee-Mack High School, Roanoke-Benson Junior High School, Eureka High School and its middle schools.

Under-performers included Evans Junior High School, Olympia Middle School, Bloomington Junior High School, Stevenson Elementary School, Clinton Elementary School, Woodland Elementary and its Woodland Junior High School, Prairie Central Junior High School, Fieldcrest Middle School and Pontiac Junior High School.   

Sheridan Elementary School (Bloomington) and Cornell Elementary School (Cornell) were ranked as lowest performing.

Illinois schools began to return to in-person instruction in October, and a hybrid system with a combination of virtual and in-person teaching was enacted.