Dimmick Comm Cons Sd 175, La Salle IL

Original Research by School Decision on Dimmick Comm Cons Sd 175

Dimmick Community Consolidated School District #175 serves a single school in La Salle, Illinois: Dimmick Elementary, a PK-8 building that enrolls a small cohort spanning the early grades through middle school.

The school sits in La Salle, a small city in north-central Illinois along the I-39/I-80 corridor. The town preserves a historic canal-era downtown with shops and restaurants in century-old storefronts, anchored by civic institutions like the La Salle Public Library and the I&M Canal Visitor Center. The city has pursued steady redevelopment through multiple tax-increment finance districts, with housing options marketed to first-time buyers, families, and retirees. The employment base includes Carus Chemical, the La Salle Veterans Home, and other local manufacturing and service employers, though population has been roughly flat to slightly declining in recent years.

Dimmick Elementary's enrollment is small, under two hundred students across ten grade bands from prekindergarten through eighth grade. The student body is predominantly white, with a small Hispanic population and single-digit counts across other racial and ethnic groups. Free-or-reduced-price-lunch eligibility data was not available; data on special education and English learner enrollment were also not reported.

The school's state test results show a sharp divide between the elementary and middle grades. In third and fourth grade, proficiency in English language arts is strong, with roughly three-quarters to nearly nine-tenths of students meeting or exceeding state standards. Third-grade math proficiency is also very high. However, from fifth grade forward, proficiency drops substantially across both subjects. Fifth-grade math proficiency sits at roughly a quarter of students; by seventh grade, no students tested at proficiency in math. Eighth-grade performance is similarly weak in both math and language arts, at single digits and low double digits. Science results at fifth and eighth grades show proficiency rates in the low-to-mid range.

Compared to the eighteen other districts in LaSalle County with available test data, Dimmick's overall proficiency index places it above the midpoint. The school does not serve high school grades, so no graduation rate is available. Data on attendance and chronic absenteeism was not reported.

Information on specific academic programs, course offerings, staffing, and discipline practices was not available. The district brief found no recent referendum, major property-tax shift, or curriculum change in the last several years that would alter the school's instructional pathway.

A parent considering Dimmick would encounter a small-school setting in a historically rooted community with modest but active civic life. The elementary grades show solid to strong performance, but the steep proficiency decline from fifth grade onward is a pattern worth exploring directly with school staff. Whether this reflects curriculum transition, student composition shifts, assessment difficulty, or other factors would merit detailed conversation before enrollment.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 394%

School 94% · District 94%

▲ 48 pts above state median · ▲ 44 pts above county median

Grade 460%

School 60% · District 60%

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 27 pts above county median

Grade 523%

School 23% · District 23%

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

Grade 640%

School 40% · District 40%

▲ 16 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

Grade 70%

School 0% · District 0%

▼ 29 pts below state median · ▼ 34 pts below county median

Grade 810%

School 10% · District 10%

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 375%

School 75% · District 75%

▲ 31 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Grade 487%

School 87% · District 87%

▲ 39 pts above state median · ▲ 40 pts above county median

Grade 569%

School 69% · District 69%

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▲ 17 pts above county median

Grade 673%

School 73% · District 73%

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Grade 764%

School 64% · District 64%

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Grade 843%

School 43% · District 43%

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

Science

Grade 531%

School 31% · District 31%

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

Grade 843%

School 43% · District 43%

▲ 3 pts above state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

This schoolDimmick Comm Cons SD #175, 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.