Hoover Wood Elem School, Batavia IL

Original Research by School Decision on Hoover Wood Elem School

Hoover Wood Elementary serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Batavia, a mid-sized Illinois city west of Chicago in Kane County. The school enrolls a small-to-moderate cohort of students in an economically mixed residential area where housing is appreciating and most households work in manufacturing, professional services, or regional employers like Fermilab.

Math proficiency on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) is the school's stronger subject. Third-grade math proficiency sits clearly above the midpoint, while fourth and fifth grades land in the mid-range. English language arts proficiency is more variable: third grade is below the state midpoint, fourth grade is in the mid-range, and fifth grade is notably strong. Fifth-grade science proficiency on the Illinois Science Assessment sits at about the midpoint. Across all tested subjects and grades, the school's overall proficiency index positions it above the midpoint among elementary schools in Kane County.

The student body is predominantly white, with meaningful representation of Hispanic and Black students and smaller Asian and multiracial cohorts. Free-and-reduced-price lunch eligibility data was not available, so a parent may want to look into the school's actual economic composition with the district directly. Special education enrollment rates and English learner counts were also not reported in the available data.

The school sits in a district that faces unresolved facility needs. Voters rejected a bond referendum in both November 2022 and April 2023 that would have replaced aging elementary buildings and funded renovations across the system. Both Hoover Wood's peer schools, Louise White and H.C. Storm, date to the 1960s and were slated for replacement; because the referendum failed twice, those buildings remain in use and the district is now exploring alternatives to address aging infrastructure. For families moving into new residential subdivisions underway on Batavia's west side, this context matters: the district's long-term capacity, building conditions, and any future financing needs may shape the school experience over coming years.

Batavia itself is in active growth, with several substantial residential developments in progress or recently launched on the west side and at infill industrial sites. The downtown riverfront is walkable and hosts civic life; schools, however, sit on separate suburban campuses rather than within the downtown core. The city is home to Fermilab, ALDI, manufacturing, and other employers, and the housing market there is appreciating at a rate modestly above the state average.

Hoover Wood's test results show a school performing in the middle range with some areas of strength, particularly in math and fifth-grade literacy. A parent considering the school would benefit from visiting, asking about class sizes and any particular instructional strengths, and understanding the district's plans for aging facilities and any future tax referenda.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 375%

School 75% · District 76% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▲ 29 pts above state median · ▲ 22 pts above county median

Grade 465%

School 65% · District 65%

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

Grade 563%

School 63% · District 56% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 33 pts above state median · ▲ 30 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 349%

School 49% · District 59% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Grade 467%

School 67% · District 66%

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

Grade 581%

School 81% · District 73% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 29 pts above state median · ▲ 26 pts above county median

Science

Grade 550%

School 50% · District 54% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

This schoolBatavia USD 101, 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.