The top reported proficiency rate is 42% in English language arts. The lowest is 34% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Annette Officer Elementary
Annette Officer Elementary serves kindergarten through fourth grade in East Saint Louis, a small city across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Louis that has experienced sustained population decline and faces significant economic headwinds. The school sits in a neighborhood with older housing stock, high vacancy, and limited retail vitality, though the broader city is beginning targeted redevelopment efforts including the Lansdowne Park subdivision near the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center and senior housing projects downtown.
The school's enrollment is small, around a couple hundred students across the grade band, and the student body is overwhelmingly Black, reflecting East Saint Louis's demographics. Enrollment data does not report free-or-reduced-price lunch rates or special education or English learner populations, so parents seeking that picture should ask the school directly.
Academic performance on the state assessment (the IAR) shows proficiency rates that are low. In third grade, roughly four in ten students met the standard in math, and roughly one in three in English language arts. Fourth grade performance drops substantially: about one in four students in math, and about half in ELA. This pattern of steeper decline in upper elementary grades warrants attention. The school does not report meaningful data on its fifth grade (which has only a handful of students), and science assessment data from prior years was suppressed, so a complete picture of performance across all grades and subjects is not available. Given the grade configuration ends at fourth grade, there is no high school context or graduation rate to report.
The district itself, East Saint Louis SD 189, has made visible recent investments in career and technical education, with a new CTE facility expansion underway at the high school expected to open in mid-2027, and has adopted school-wide AVID strategies starting in elementary school and expanded dual-credit and college pathway partnerships. Those changes sit at the secondary level and do not directly affect elementary instruction, but they signal district direction toward college and career readiness infrastructure.
The broader community context is constrained. Housing is affordable by national standards, and the county market has seen modest recovery, but the city continues to lose residents. East Saint Louis has transit access via MetroLink and civic anchors including Jones Park and the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center nearby, which offers youth programs. The median household income for the region is below state and national levels, and poverty rates are elevated.
Annette Officer is a regular public elementary school without magnet or charter designation. A parent evaluating it should ask about the specific causes of the fourth-grade performance dip, what reading and math interventions are in place, whether the school's AVID strategies are already deployed at the elementary level, and what the student composition looks like with respect to English learners or students with IEPs. The low proficiency numbers reflect both student needs and school performance, and a parent may want to look into further detail about instructional quality, staffing stability, and family engagement, particularly around the transition between third and fourth grade where the data shows a notable shift.
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