Marengo Comm Middle School, Marengo IL

Original Research by School Decision on Marengo Comm Middle School

Marengo Community Middle School serves sixth through eighth grade in a small city in southwestern McHenry County, about forty miles northwest of Chicago. The school sits on the residential grid of Marengo, a place of roughly eight thousand people that has grown steadily in recent years, with new home construction and subdivisions expanding across the surrounding prairie. Families here tend to commute to Chicago or work locally in manufacturing, retail, health care, and logistics. The housing market reflects the region's growth: values are modest for the Chicago area, and the town offers both historic homes near its walkable downtown along Grant Highway and newer suburban developments.

The school enrolls roughly three hundred students across the three middle grades, with modest diversity. The student body is roughly two-thirds white, nearly one-third Hispanic, and very small shares of Black and Asian students. No data on free-or-reduced-price lunch eligibility or English learner enrollment was available. The school does not disclose special education enrollment figures on the available record.

Academic results on Illinois state testing show proficiency in the low-to-middle range. In math, grade six reached roughly two out of five students proficient, with grade seven at about one-third and grade eight bouncing back to roughly two out of five. In English language arts, the picture is stronger: grade six hit about one-half proficient, grade seven about one-half, and grade eight roughly two-thirds. Science testing is available only for grade eight, where about two out of five students reached proficiency. All students participate at or very near one hundred percent. When placed against districts in McHenry County as a whole, Marengo Community's overall proficiency index across tested subjects falls below the median for the county. A parent may want to look into the school's support structures and any targeted interventions, particularly in math, to understand how the school addresses gaps.

The school is a regular public school, not a charter, and no separate magnet or Title I designation was noted. State testing data was not available for grades three, four, and five, consistent with the fact that this is a middle school and Illinois does not test those grades as part of its statewide assessment program. A graduation rate does not apply, as the school does not serve high school students. Information on after-school programming, course electives, sports offerings, or specific discipline policies was not available in the data provided, nor were staffing or attendance figures. A parent considering this school may want to reach out directly to gather detail on these dimensions of the learning environment.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 638%

School 38% · District 38%

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Grade 735%

School 35% · District 35%

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 840%

School 40% · District 40%

▲ 18 pts above state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 651%

School 51% · District 50% · ▲ 1 pts above district

even with state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

Grade 751%

School 51% · District 51%

even with state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Grade 856%

School 56% · District 56%

▲ 3 pts above state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Science

Grade 842%

School 42% · District 42%

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

This schoolMarengo-Union E Cons D 165, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.