The top reported proficiency rate is 67% in English language arts. The lowest is 30% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Dupo Jr High School
Dupo Junior High School serves grades seven and eight in a small village in St. Clair County, Illinois, about nine miles south of St. Louis along the Mississippi River. The school shares a building with Dupo High School and feeds from Bluffview Elementary, part of Community Unit School District No. 196. The enrollment is small, with roughly equal numbers in each grade.
The student body is predominantly white, with smaller shares of Black and Hispanic students and students identifying as two or more races. The school serves a working-class community rooted in the railroad industry; the dominant regional employer is Union Pacific's Dupo intermodal yard, a major Midwest freight hub that has anchored the local economy since the early 1900s.
On state testing, the school shows uneven performance across subjects and grades. In English language arts, seventh graders achieved proficiency at a solid rate and eighth graders at a higher rate, with all students participating in testing. Mathematics performance was notably lower: seventh graders achieved proficiency at less than a third of the rate of their ELA peers, and eighth graders at roughly a third. In science, eighth graders tested achieved proficiency at a modest rate. All available tests show full participation. Testing data was not available for third through sixth grades, which the state assesses but which Dupo Junior High does not serve; the school also did not report free-or-reduced-price lunch counts, English learner enrollments, or special education counts, so the economic and language backgrounds of students remain unclear from the available data. A parent may want to reach out to the school directly to understand the student population composition and support services more fully.
Relative to districts across St. Clair County, Dupo Junior High's overall proficiency index places it above the midpoint, suggesting academic performance better than half of the county's districts. This positioning reflects the strength in ELA alongside the more limited math results.
Dupo itself is car-dependent with no public transit, and most commerce concentrates along South Main Street with limited retail beyond a Dollar General; residents typically shop in St. Louis. The housing stock consists largely of early twentieth-century cottages and bungalows, many under nine hundred square feet. Home values in the area have declined over the past year, and inventory activity is mixed. The village has held its population and avoided the steeper declines of neighboring communities, with new development concentrated east of the railroad toward higher ground and a contemporary subdivision off Main Street. The village is also pursuing industrial and infrastructure development around the Union Pacific yards. Civic anchors include Dupo Community Park in the village center and the Daugherty Public Library. The overall setting is a small, economically modest, car-dependent community with modest housing values and a strong industrial footprint.
See more original research from School Decision →