The top reported proficiency rate is 32% in English language arts. The lowest is 15% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Dunbar Elem School
Dunbar Elementary School serves kindergarten through fourth grade in East Saint Louis, a small, majority-Black city across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Louis. The school enrolls about that size for its grade band, with nearly all students identifying as Black and a very small share as Hispanic. State testing data from the most recent school year shows proficiency in math and English language arts that falls in the bottom quartile among the county's districts. In third grade, students demonstrated proficiency in math and language arts at roughly a quarter or slightly below; fourth grade math proficiency dropped further to about a seventh of students, while fourth grade language arts rose to roughly two-fifths. No science testing data is available from recent years because the school does not serve tested science grades. The school's participation rate in assessments is high, suggesting the results reflect actual performance rather than gaps in testing.
The student population is economically vulnerable. Free-or-reduced-price lunch counts and rates were not available in the school's directory data, but East Saint Louis itself has median household income in the range of typical working-poor communities and a poverty rate above one-third of families. The housing stock is aging and vacancies are high, with home values in the neighborhood quite modest. The broader economic context in St. Clair County includes ongoing job losses and population decline across the city.
Dunbar sits in East St. Louis School District 189, which is actively building career and technical pathways at the high school level through a major expansion funded by state grant money, with programs in HVAC and machine tooling launching in 2027. The district has also adopted school-wide AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) strategies beginning in elementary school and expanded dual-credit and Running Start partnerships with Southwestern Illinois College, so a clear college-and-career pipeline is taking shape at the district level, even if Dunbar's early elementary students are not yet showing strong proficiency outcomes.
Parent may want to look further into what Dunbar offers beyond testing: whether the school provides structured literacy interventions, math support, or other catch-up programs for students entering below grade level; how the AVID program is operationalized in K-4; what the school's attendance and discipline climate look like; and how the school works with families on at-home learning support. The gap between participation and proficiency suggests access to testing is not the issue; the school's strengths and concrete next steps for students will be clearer from conversations with school staff about classroom instruction, tutoring, and family engagement strategies.
See more original research from School Decision →