The top reported proficiency rate is 24% in English language arts. The lowest is 16% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Founders Elementary School
Founders Elementary serves kindergarten through fifth grade in DeKalb, a mid-sized university city anchored by Northern Illinois University, with mixed neighborhoods, a preserved downtown, and active growth driven by data-center and logistics investment on its south side. The school sits in a community with a fairly affordable housing market relative to the state and nation, where the median home value falls below both Illinois and national benchmarks, and rental costs are comparable to national patterns.
The school enrolls a diverse student body across a small-to-mid-sized elementary enrollment. Students are roughly split between Hispanic and Black students, with a smaller share of white students and smaller counts of Asian, multiracial, and Native American students. Income-based poverty data was not available, so a parent cannot assess the free-or-reduced-price-lunch rate. No data on the percentage of English learners or students with disabilities was reported.
The Illinois Assessment of Readiness data for grades three through five shows proficiency rates that are well below what the state expects and considerably below typical performance in other DeKalb County districts. In grade three, roughly a quarter of students reached proficiency in both math and reading. Grade four saw modestly higher reading results but comparable math performance. Grade five showed the steepest declines: math proficiency fell to single digits, and reading to mid-teens. A fifth-grade science assessment in spring of 2025 showed similarly low proficiency. Testing participation was consistently near universal across all grades and subjects, so absences did not drive the results. Illinois changed its proficiency cut scores for 2024-25, so direct year-to-year comparison is not available; a parent may want to ask the school whether proficiency has moved in a consistent direction or if 2024-25 marked a shift.
Against the comparison benchmark of DeKalb County districts, Founders sits in the bottom quartile on overall proficiency. This places the school materially below where most schools in the same county operate. A parent considering this school should view these results as a significant area to understand further with school leadership, including what instructional changes, support services, or staffing shifts are underway to address them.
Grades six through eight do not appear in the tested data because this is an elementary school serving through fifth grade. The school does not have a reported graduation rate, as applicable only to secondary schools.
At the district level, DeKalb CUSD 428 is navigating a period of fiscal and pedagogical change that affects families. A county-wide school-facility sales-tax referendum that the district had championed as a way to lower property taxes and pay down debt failed at the ballot in November 2024, and the board declined to place it again. Separately, a 2025 property-tax levy increase driven by health-insurance premium hikes and loss of state transportation reimbursement will directly raise school tax bills for typical homeowners in 2026. More broadly, the district is implementing "Vision For28," a building-reconfiguration and grade-structure plan that includes moving fifth-graders into a self-contained two-teacher model at Founders and other elementary buildings. This represents a shift in how and with whom fifth graders are taught, and it affects attendance zones. Parents considering Founders should understand both the recent tax environment and how this pedagogical change will affect their child's classroom structure and peer grouping.
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