The top reported proficiency rate is 58% in Science. The lowest is 23% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Jacksonville Middle School
Jacksonville Middle School serves grades six through eight in Jacksonville, a county-seat city in west-central Illinois. The school sits in a community anchored by a historic downtown square and an institutional landscape including Illinois College and a pair of state schools for deaf and blind students. The broader district has recently committed substantial resources to facilities work across its elementary, middle, and high schools, funded largely through bond sales and federal ESSER grants without raising property taxes, and is now planning a new elementary school to serve the Murrayville area.
The school's tested enrollment runs to roughly 650 students, distributed fairly evenly across the three grade bands. Racially and ethnically, the enrollment is predominantly white, with a smaller but meaningful share of students identifying as two or more races, Black, and Hispanic, and very small numbers of Asian and Native American students. Data on free-and-reduced-price lunch eligibility and special-education enrollment were not available.
Academic performance on state assessments reveals a school with weaker results in mathematics and stronger relative performance in English language arts and science. In sixth-grade mathematics, proficiency runs roughly one-fifth of students; in seventh and eighth grades, it climbs slightly to just under one-quarter. Participation in math testing is nearly universal across all grades. By contrast, English language arts shows meaningfully higher proficiency: sixth-grade reading sits near forty-four percent, seventh grade near forty percent, and eighth grade near thirty-nine percent. Science proficiency for eighth graders reaches nearly fifty-eight percent. Across all tested areas, student participation in assessments exceeds ninety-nine percent, indicating consistent testing administration and minimal absences on test days.
Positioned against the other school districts in Morgan County, Jacksonville Middle School falls below the midpoint for overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades. The state does not report graduation rates for middle schools, and chronic absenteeism data were not available in the provided information. No state testing results exist for grades three through five because this school serves only middle grades.
The school building itself has benefited from recent renovation and upgrade work as part of the district's broader capital program. Parents considering this school should note the low mathematics proficiency rates and may wish to ask the school directly about math curriculum, intervention strategies, and support structures for students not meeting grade-level standards. The reading and science results suggest the school has stronger momentum in those domains. The school's setting in Jacksonville places it within reach of the city's downtown and civic amenities, including Nichols Park and the historic public library, and within a region marketed on affordable housing and established institutional presence.
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