Spring Garden Middle School, Ina IL

Original Research by School Decision on Spring Garden Middle School

Spring Garden Middle School serves grades five through eight in Ina, a small rural village in Jefferson County in southern Illinois. The school is part of Spring Garden Community Consolidated School District 178 and enrolls a small student body of about a mid-sized collection of students across its grades, with the fifth grade being the largest cohort.

The student body is predominantly white, with a small representation of Black students and students identifying as two or more races. No data on free-or-reduced-price lunch eligibility, English learners, or special education enrollment was available. The school draws from the surrounding rural community, where employment is dominated by two institutional anchors: Rend Lake College and the Big Muddy River Correctional Center. Population in Ina itself is stable to slightly declining, with no major residential growth underway.

Academic performance across Spring Garden Middle School's tested grades shows uneven results across subjects. In English language arts, seventh grade stands out as notably stronger, with a substantial share of students reaching proficiency. Eighth grade shows solid results as well. Fifth and sixth grades run considerably lower in ELA proficiency. Math proficiency is consistently low across all tested grades, ranging from low to very low levels, with sixth grade slightly higher than the others. Science proficiency where tested is low, though eighth grade shows somewhat better performance than fifth grade. A parent may want to look into these patterns directly with the school to understand what instructional approaches are in place and what support is available, particularly in mathematics. Participation rates across most grades are very high, indicating that absences and test access are not the issue driving the lower proficiency figures.

Relative to other districts in Jefferson County, Spring Garden Middle School's overall proficiency index sits below the midpoint of the county range. Graduation rate and chronic absenteeism data are not applicable to a middle school.

The school's physical location is at South Elm Street in the village. Ina's setting is rural and car-dependent, with Illinois Route 37 serving as the village's primary commercial and residential corridor and Interstate 57 providing regional access. The village itself has minimal walkable infrastructure and no public transit system. The nearby Rend Lake College campus and the correctional center are significant features of the local landscape but are distinct institutional campuses rather than part of a traditional downtown core.

No data was available on the school's specific program offerings, staffing, disciplinary environment, or attendance patterns. District-level strategic changes were not identified in public sources. A family considering Spring Garden Middle School would benefit from direct conversation with school leadership about academic support systems, particularly in mathematics, and about the character of the middle grades experience in this small rural setting.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 516%

School 16% · District 16%

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Grade 623%

School 23% · District 23%

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Grade 721%

School 21% · District 21%

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Grade 815%

School 15% · District 15%

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

English language arts

Grade 536%

School 36% · District 36%

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

Grade 631%

School 31% · District 31%

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 763%

School 63% · District 63%

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 845%

School 45% · District 45%

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Science

Grade 516%

School 16% · District 16%

▼ 21 pts below state median · ▼ 19 pts below county median

Grade 833%

School 33% · District 33%

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

This schoolSpring Garden CCSD 178, 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 8Lower-income33%Higher-income55%21 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 8Lower-income8%Higher-income18%10 pp gap