Hill Elem School, Aurora IL - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Hill Elem School

Hill Elementary serves students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade in Aurora, a mixed-use suburban city just outside Chicago. The school sits on Pennsylvania Avenue and enrolls a small but diverse student body, with a Hispanic-majority population alongside Black, white, and Asian students. The enrollment across the early grades is stable, ranging from about 80 to 94 students per grade.

State testing data from Illinois shows Hill Elementary faces significant academic headwinds. In math, tested students in grades three, four, and five show proficiency rates that cluster in the low range. Grade three and grade four students performed at roughly the same modest level, while grade five students scored lower still. In English language arts, the pattern is similar: proficiency rates in grades three, four, and five all fall well below what would indicate strong performance on the state's IAR assessment. Science testing, available for grade five only, shows proficiency at an even lower point. All tested grades maintain high participation rates, meaning the data reflect the school's actual student performance rather than assessment avoidance.

When Hill Elementary's overall proficiency is positioned against other districts in Kane County, the school sits in the bottom quartile. This is a clear signal that academic outcomes here lag substantially behind typical performance in the county's other schools. A parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand what factors drive these results and what the school's plans are to improve them.

The school does not report free-and-reduced-price lunch counts, so family economic circumstances cannot be directly observed through that lens. Housing in Aurora's zip code runs at moderate values with rents in the mid-range for the region, suggesting a working- and middle-class neighborhood character.

Aurora West School District 129, which operates Hill Elementary, has made full-day kindergarten its default enrollment model for incoming students, a shift that carries weight for families in which both parents work. The district's operational structure and any broader initiatives were not substantially documented in available sources, so a parent would benefit from visiting the district website directly to learn about curriculum, special programs, or strategic priorities.

Hill Elementary appears to be a neighborhood school serving a predominately Hispanic student population in an urban setting with real academic performance challenges across core subjects.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 317%

School 17% · District 38% · ▼ 20 pts below district

▼ 29 pts below state median · ▼ 35 pts below county median

Grade 418%

School 18% · District 30% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 28 pts below county median

Grade 514%

School 14% · District 23% · ▼ 9 pts below district

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

English language arts

Grade 312%

School 12% · District 28% · ▼ 16 pts below district

▼ 32 pts below state median · ▼ 33 pts below county median

Grade 418%

School 18% · District 32% · ▼ 14 pts below district

▼ 30 pts below state median · ▼ 30 pts below county median

Grade 517%

School 17% · District 37% · ▼ 19 pts below district

▼ 35 pts below state median · ▼ 38 pts below county median

Science

Grade 58%

School 8% · District 29% · ▼ 20 pts below district

▼ 29 pts below state median · ▼ 32 pts below county median

This schoolAurora West USD 129, 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.