Anna Junior High School, Anna IL

Original Research by School Decision on Anna Junior High School

Anna Junior High School is a public junior high serving grades five through eight in Anna, a small, declining Southern Illinois city in Union County. The school enrolls roughly a quarter-thousand students and sits in a community that has lost population over recent decades, though the school population itself appears stable.

The clearest strength of this school is in English language arts. Proficiency climbs sharply by grade: fifth-grade students show solid performance, sixth and seventh graders demonstrate consistent strength, and by eighth grade the results are notably strong. In mathematics, the pattern is different. Fifth and sixth graders show low proficiency; seventh grade shows modest improvement; by eighth grade, performance rises substantially. This progression across both subjects suggests that the school may be building skills incrementally, with earlier grades struggling more than later ones. Science proficiency sits in the middle range for both tested grades.

When placed against other districts in Union County, the school's overall proficiency sits above the midpoint, meaning it is performing better than typical for its regional peer set.

State assessment data does not include grades three and four, which the school serves but Illinois does not test at those levels. No data on chronic absenteeism, graduation rates, English learner enrollment, or students with individualized education plans appears in the available records. The school does not report free-or-reduced-price lunch counts. The student body is predominantly white, with small populations of Hispanic, Black, and Asian students.

Anna itself is a compact town centered on a walkable downtown with the Stinson Memorial Library and a modest local culture around festivals and small businesses. Employment centers on the state's Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center, Union County Hospital, and the school system itself. The town has not grown; families considering the school should understand they are choosing an older, established community with limited new housing development and a modest economic profile tied to state government and health care rather than growth industries.

A parent may want to look further into the gap between fifth-sixth and seventh-eighth grade performance in math, particularly if their child is entering the earlier grades, to understand what pedagogical or support changes happen between those cohorts.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 517%

School 17% · District 17%

▼ 13 pts below state median

Grade 614%

School 14% · District 14%

▼ 10 pts below state median

Grade 726%

School 26% · District 26%

▼ 2 pts below state median

Grade 844%

School 44% · District 44%

▲ 22 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 568%

School 68% · District 68%

▲ 16 pts above state median

Grade 664%

School 64% · District 64%

▲ 14 pts above state median

Grade 759%

School 59% · District 59%

▲ 8 pts above state median

Grade 883%

School 83% · District 83%

▲ 29 pts above state median

Science

Grade 546%

School 46% · District 46%

▲ 9 pts above state median

Grade 839%

School 39% · District 39%

▼ 1 pts below state median

This schoolAnna CCSD 37, 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.