Kimes, Northlawn Rated ‘Developing’ on State Report Card

STREATOR — Two of Streator Elementary School District 44's three schools received the second-lowest of five ratings on the 2026 Illinois Report Card, which the Illinois State Board of Education released Friday.

Kimes Elementary School and Northlawn Junior High School were rated "Developing." Centennial Elementary School was rated "Commendable," the middle rating.

The report card covers the 2025-26 school year. It includes state test scores, attendance and other measures for every public school in Illinois.

What the ratings mean

This is the first year of a new state rating system. From highest to lowest, the ratings are Exemplary, Approaching Exemplary, Commendable, Developing and Comprehensive.

The state describes Developing schools as showing "patterns of performance showing greater need for improvement."

Schools are now measured against fixed standards instead of being ranked against one another, so this year's ratings cannot be compared directly with past years.

For elementary and middle schools, a rating rests mainly on two things, how many students meet state standards on tests and how much students' scores improve from one year to the next.

Attendance, the progress of students learning English and a school climate survey can raise a rating but cannot lower it.

Statewide, 452 of 3,828 schools, or 11.8%, were rated Developing.

The three schools

Kimes serves preschool through first grade, Centennial serves grades two through four and Northlawn serves grades five through eight.

Under the old rating system, Kimes and Centennial were rated Commendable last year. Northlawn was in "Targeted" status for the 2024-25 school year, according to district documents.

A school was labeled Targeted when at least one group of its students performed as low as students at the state's lowest-performing schools.

The old labels do not mean the same thing as the new ones.

In 2025, 73.4% of Illinois schools were rated Commendable. This year, 28.2% received that rating.

Kimes' students are too young to take state tests, which begin in third grade, so the state rates schools like Kimes using the later test results of students who attended them.

For Kimes, the test score measure uses last spring's results for students who were Kimes first graders two years earlier. Those students were in third grade last spring.

The improvement measure uses students who were Kimes first graders three years earlier. They were in fourth grade last spring.

Attendance at Kimes also counts toward its rating.

Test scores

In District 44, 40.6% of students in grades three through eight scored proficient in English language arts on state tests last spring, meaning they met the state's standard for their grade.

That was up from 36.9% the year before. Statewide, 55.4% were proficient, up from 52.4%.

In math, 22% of District 44 students were proficient, up from 20.5%. The statewide rate was 39.2%, up from 38.4%.

The district's gap with the state narrowed slightly in both subjects, from 15.5 to 14.8 percentage points in reading and from 17.9 to 17.2 points in math.

The state lowered the scores needed to be proficient beginning with the spring 2025 tests. The 2025 and 2026 results can be compared with each other but not with earlier years.

Percent of students proficient by grade, spring 2026

Third grade had the largest gain in reading, rising from 28.8% proficient to 42%, about 5 percentage points below the state rate.

Eighth grade rose from 36.2% to 46.9% in reading and from 15.1% to 21.7% in math.

Fourth-grade math fell from 33.1% to 23.6%, while the state rate held at about 42%.

Sixth-grade reading fell from 49% to 36.4%, while the state rate rose.

In grades five through seven, between 13% and 15.2% of District 44 students were proficient in math, compared with 36% to 39.3% statewide.

Growth

The report card also measures how much students' scores improved from one year to the next, compared with students across Illinois who started at similar levels.

The state average is 50. A score above 50 means students improved more than similar students statewide, and a score below 50 means they improved less.

Because this measure was not affected by the change in passing scores, it can be compared across years.

District 44 scored 44.9 in reading, down from 50.3 the year before. The 2025 score was the district's highest in the six years shown on the report card.

In math, the district scored 43.1, compared with 43.3 the year before.

By school, Northlawn scored 46 in reading and 44.2 in math. Centennial scored 41.1 in reading and 39.2 in math.

Attendance

In District 44, 29.5% of students were chronically absent, meaning they missed 10% or more of the school year, excused or unexcused. In a typical 176-day Illinois school year, that is about 18 days or more.

The rate was 32% at Kimes, 31.1% at Centennial and 27% at Northlawn.

Statewide, 23.5% of students were chronically absent, the fourth straight yearly decline.

Two years earlier, in 2023-24, the district's rate was 30.3% and the state's was 26.3%.

Nearby districts

Ratings for schools in nearby elementary districts, by number of schools

What comes next

The state sent each district a letter listing its schools' ratings Oct. 26, according to the state board's release schedule.

District 44 is reviewing its reading curriculum this school year. Teachers will pilot four reading programs and a writing program from November through February, according to district documents.

A recommendation to the school board is expected in April 2027. Math materials are next in the district's three-year review cycle.

Look up a school

The full report card for every Illinois school and district is at illinoisreportcard.com. Searching a school's name brings up its test scores by grade and student group, attendance, teacher information and spending.