The top reported proficiency rate is 64% in English language arts. The lowest is 18% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Harrisburg Middle School
Harrisburg Middle School serves grades six through eight in Harrisburg, a slowly contracting small city in southeastern Illinois that was once a coal-mining hub. The school sits within Harrisburg CUSD 3 and operates as a regular public middle school in a county where it stands above the midpoint in overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades.
The most recent state testing data show a school with uneven performance across subject areas and grade levels. In English language arts, results improve as students progress: sixth graders achieved about half proficiency, seventh graders moved to nearly two-thirds, and eighth graders reached roughly three-quarters proficiency. This upward trend is a strength. Mathematics proficiency, by contrast, is considerably weaker. Sixth-grade math proficiency hovered around fifteen percent, seventh-grade roughly sixteen percent, and eighth-grade rose only to near twenty-four percent. These math results are substantially lower than the language arts picture and suggest this is an area where a parent may want to look into further with the school to understand what instructional support or intervention exists. Science testing in eighth grade showed about forty-five percent proficiency. Student participation in state assessments was nearly universal across grade levels, indicating strong engagement with the testing process.
The school serves just under four hundred students split fairly evenly across its three grade bands. The student body is predominantly white, with smaller shares of students identifying as multi-racial, Hispanic, and Black. Very limited demographic data were available; information on free-or-reduced-price lunch eligibility, English learners, and students with IEPs did not appear in the public record, so a parent interested in those specifics should contact the school directly.
Harrisburg itself is a traditional small town built around a historic courthouse square, with blocks of early-1900s homes and a separate commercial strip for chain retail. The town's identity is anchored to its coal-mining past and its role as gateway to the Shawnee National Forest. Housing values are modest and declining slightly year over year. The area's major employers are the regional medical center, the community college, and retail chains on Commercial Street. Population has contracted from a peak in the early 1930s and continues to drift downward, which shapes both the schools' enrollment context and the local housing market. A parent moving to the area would find older housing stock, low mortgage obligations relative to national benchmarks, but a community in long-term contraction rather than growth.
No recent district-level changes, referendums, or curriculum shifts that would affect parent planning could be confirmed from public sources.
The school participated fully in state testing and maintains regular attendance, positioning it as an engaged institution in its community. The strength in eighth-grade English language arts and the overall performance that places it in the upper portion of its county are genuine positives. The weakness in mathematics across all middle grades warrants direct conversation with school leadership about instruction, support structures, and intervention.
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