The top reported proficiency rate is 59% in English language arts. The lowest is 37% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Kings Elementary School
Kings Elementary School serves kindergarten through eighth grade in a rural farming community of fewer than a hundred residents in Ogle County, Illinois. The school itself is the civic anchor of Kings, a tiny unincorporated hamlet along Illinois Route 64 with a grain elevator and scattered houses. The enrollment is small, around seventy-five students spread across nine grade levels, making for single-digit to low-double-digit cohorts in most grades.
The school's academic picture is uneven. In third-grade math, all students tested met proficiency. Third-grade reading shows solid performance at roughly seventy percent proficiency, and sixth-grade reading sits at around sixty percent. In contrast, sixth-grade math proficiency is very low, and eighth-grade math shows no students meeting the proficiency bar. Eighth-grade reading is modest, near fifty percent. Science data for grade five is not available; grade eight science proficiency is similar to reading in that grade. The state did alter its proficiency cut scores in the assessment used here, so some year-to-year comparisons are complicated, and the school has not published trend data.
Compared to other districts in Ogle County, Kings Elementary's overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile. This is a data point parents may want to explore further with the school, especially regarding the sharp differences between strong third-grade performance and struggling grades six and eight in math.
The student body is predominantly white, with small numbers of Hispanic, Black, and multiracial students. Free-or-reduced-price-lunch data and special education and English learner population counts are not publicly reported for this school. Attendance and discipline data are also absent.
The school sits in a community with almost no growth. Kings first appeared as a census-designated place in 2020. School enrollment has declined from around ninety students to the current level, and housing prices in the local zip code are well below both state and national medians, reflecting the rural setting and limited economic activity. A county-wide school facilities sales tax referendum failed in March 2024, which would have provided dedicated funding for facility improvements, security, and mental health services; without it, the school remains dependent on local property taxes and state aid.
Kings is not a place of opportunity for traditional amenities. The nearest high school is in Rochelle, a short drive away. Parents who choose this school do so for its small-school environment and rural setting, not for academic breadth or program diversity. The teaching force and school leadership operate within real constraints of size and limited revenue. For families embedded in the local farm economy or seeking a tight-knit K-8 environment, this school may meet their needs; for those seeking strong math instruction or a broader range of academic or extracurricular offerings, the current profile suggests looking elsewhere.
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