The top reported proficiency rate is 68% in English language arts. The lowest is 34% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Jersey Community Middle School
Jersey Community Middle School serves students in grades five through seven in Jerseyville, the county seat of Jersey County in southwest Illinois. The school is a regular public school with enrollment in the range of several hundred students, spread across the three grades it serves.
Academic performance shows a clear subject strength in English language arts and a softer picture in mathematics. In ELA, proficiency rates climb as students advance through the grades, with seventh graders reaching proficiency well above the midpoint, while fifth and sixth graders also show solid proficiency. Mathematics proficiency is lower across all tested grades; fifth and sixth graders show proficiency rates below the midpoint, though seventh graders perform better. In science, fifth-grade proficiency sits near the midpoint. Testing data for eighth grade are not available; the school does not appear to serve that grade in all subjects measured. Illinois revised its proficiency standards for the recent test year, so prior-year comparisons are not available to show whether performance is moving upward or downward.
A parent may want to look into further what resources or interventions the school is deploying in mathematics, where the gap between ELA and math proficiency is most pronounced. It would also be worth asking the school about any transition supports it offers, since the math-to-ELA gap may reflect the difficulty some students face stepping into middle-grades mathematics rather than a gap in instruction.
The school sits in Jerseyville, a small city with a walkable historic downtown and steady outward growth on the south and southwest, where new residential subdivisions and retail have expanded since the early 1990s. Median home values in the area are moderate and below state benchmarks. Major employers include Jersey Community Hospital, a Bayer agricultural biotechnology facility, and other healthcare, manufacturing, and agricultural operations; some residents commute south to Alton and the St. Louis region for work.
Demographically, the school enrolls a student body that is predominantly white, with smaller shares of Hispanic, multiracial, and other students. Data on free-or-reduced-price lunch eligibility, special education rates, and English learner populations were not available. All three grades the school tests achieved high participation rates on state assessments.
The Jersey Community Unit School District recently approved a property tax levy increase on a close board vote in November 2025. District officials noted that this levy decision would not necessarily translate to higher property tax bills for homeowners because the actual impact depends on growth in the county's assessed property values.
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