The top reported proficiency rate is 64% in English language arts. The lowest is 32% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Emge Junior High School
Emge Junior High School serves seventh and eighth grades in Belleville, Illinois, a St. Clair County seat and suburbs of St. Louis with a mixed residential and commercial character anchored by historic downtown and outer retail corridors. The school enrolls a small student body, with roughly equal numbers in each grade.
The student population is racially mixed. Just under half identify as Black, with a substantial share identifying as white, and smaller groups identifying as multiracial, Hispanic, Asian, or Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. Free-or-reduced-price-lunch data and counts of students with IEPs or who are English learners were not available, so a complete picture of economic need and service populations cannot be drawn from the data at hand.
Testing data shows a school working with meaningful academic challenges. In seventh-grade math, proficiency is around four in ten students. In eighth-grade math, that drops to roughly one in four, a steep grade-to-grade decline that deserves attention. Eighth-grade science proficiency sits at about four in ten. In English language arts, the school performs stronger: seventh graders reach roughly two-thirds proficiency, and eighth graders come in at about three in five. Participation rates in testing are very high across grades and subjects, above 98 percent, which means these numbers reflect consistent assessment of nearly the full student body rather than selective testing. State assessment scoring changed for the 2024-25 school year, which means comparisons to prior years are complicated, so trend information was unavailable.
When positioned against other districts in St. Clair County, Emge's overall proficiency index places it above the county midpoint. This is a positive marker relative to the peer group, though the raw numbers show areas where individual students are not meeting proficiency, particularly in eighth-grade mathematics.
The school is a regular public school within Harmony Emge School District 175, which serves this neighborhood. The district brief did not surface major recent curriculum changes or tax-policy moves that would shape parent experience in the short term.
Belleville itself is a stable residential and commercial city with a traditional downtown and significant military and federal presence from nearby Scott Air Force Base. The housing market has tightened modestly, with median home values and rents both climbing slightly year-over-year and homes selling faster than a year prior. The area supports healthcare, education, government, and military-anchored employment, with three MetroLink light rail stations offering commuter access to St. Louis.
A parent evaluating Emge should understand that it is a small neighborhood junior high serving a mixed-race community and faces real proficiency gaps, especially in mathematics as students move into eighth grade. The school's performance above the county median in overall testing is a strength, and the strong participation rates show consistent assessment. The sharp drop in math between seventh and eighth grade is a pattern worth discussing directly with the school to understand whether it reflects instruction, student engagement, homework support, or other factors. The wider ecosystem of Belleville offers stable, mixed-income housing and employment grounded in established institutions rather than rapid growth, which suits families seeking residential stability without dramatic development pressures.
See more original research from School Decision →