The top reported proficiency rate is 53% in Math. The lowest is 50% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Alan B Shepard Elem School
Alan B. Shepard Elementary School serves children in pre-kindergarten through third grade in Bourbonnais, a mid-sized suburban village in the Chicagoland region of Kankakee County. The school sits within a community marked by French-Canadian heritage, a walkable downtown core, and expanding residential development, all anchored by health care, education, and retail employment and a series of public parks and civic spaces.
The school itself serves a modest enrollment across the early grades, with a student body that is majority white, with substantial shares of Black and Hispanic students, and smaller populations of Asian, multiracial, and American Indian students. Specific data on free-or-reduced-price lunch eligibility, special education enrollment, and English learner status were not available.
Illinois state testing data (the IAR assessment) is available for third grade only, since the state tests that grade but not pre-K, kindergarten, first, or second grade. In third-grade math, about half of students reached proficiency; in third-grade English language arts, proficiency was slightly lower. Neither result is strong on its face, and they place the school above the midpoint when compared to other tested schools across Kankakee County districts. Science testing data from the state is no longer current and were suppressed at the school level; the state shifted its science testing cycle and grades in the years since.
These results should be read with care. A single grade's snapshot does not tell the full story of how the school serves younger children or how students progress through the school's span. Parents may want to look further into how Shepard serves the pre-K through second-grade cohort and whether the school has tracked cohort growth or used local assessments to measure early literacy and numeracy work.
The broader context matters here. Bourbonnais Elementary School District 53, the school's parent district, was publicly recognized as one of a select group of districts nationwide that fully recovered academically from pandemic disruptions, a signal that district-level academic practice and support has regained traction. At the same time, the district has undertaken substantial capital and maintenance work. It issued bonds in February 2025 to fund health and life safety code improvements at Shepard and three other schools, and had previously financed roof replacement and facility repairs through a multi-year bond issued in 2023 and 2024. For the 2025 tax year, the district approved a levy request that represented a modest increase over the prior year, pushing toward Kankakee County's property tax cap. These are the fiscal realities parents and homeowners in the attendance area will experience directly.
Shepard occupies a traditional elementary school niche: serving only the youngest grades in a public school setting with no specialized program designation. The school's limited grade band means state testing covers only the oldest students it serves, a gap that is structural to how early elementary is assessed, not a reflection of school performance. The broader question for families is whether the school's approach to early literacy, math foundations, and school culture aligns with what they seek for their child in kindergarten through second grade, and whether the third-grade transition and performance suggest a coherent instructional pathway. The school itself does not appear as a school of choice, magnet program, or alternative model; it functions as a neighborhood school within its district.
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