The top reported proficiency rate is 70% in English language arts. The lowest is 53% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Nettle Creek Elem School
Nettle Creek Elementary School is a very small K-8 building located outside Morris, Illinois, in rural Grundy County. The school serves a combined enrollment of around 78 students across nine grades, with slightly larger cohorts in kindergarten and fifth grade. The student body is predominantly white, with a small share of Hispanic students; specific enrollment breakdowns by special education or English learner status were not available.
The school's test results show mixed performance. In English language arts, grade 4 students met proficiency at a stronger rate, while grade 6 showed moderate proficiency. In mathematics, grade 4 performed solidly, but grade 6 proficiency dropped significantly. Grade 3 and grades 5, 7, and 8 have no reported results; for grade 3 this reflects a data gap, while for the upper middle grades it often reflects small cohort sizes or assessment administration patterns. Science testing data were not reported. A parent may want to look directly into what assessment schedule and cohort sizes mean for these missing results.
The proficiency index across the school, computed from reported results, places Nettle Creek in the top quartile among the Grundy County districts based on the comparison set used here. This is a genuine strength given the scale and setting of the school. What this reflects is performance on the tested portions of the curriculum; the school's overall academic trajectory across all grades cannot be fully assessed from these partial results.
Nettle Creek is not a Title I school, and free-or-reduced-price-lunch data were not provided, so the economic profile of the student body remains unclear. The school is part of the Nettle Creek Consolidated Community School District 24C, a single-school district with no reported recent policy or curriculum changes in available sources.
Morris itself is a small county-seat city of mixed character about 60 miles southwest of Chicago, centered on a restored historic downtown along the Illinois and Michigan Canal but also anchored by major employers in healthcare, nuclear power generation, distribution logistics, and manufacturing. The area has been experiencing modest population growth and planned residential development, primarily west and north of current city limits. Housing values and rental rates in the 60450 zip code are below the state benchmark, making the area affordable relative to Illinois as a whole. Median household income across the region is solid, and employment remains stable, though rates may fluctuate with regional economic conditions.
This is a rural school serving a small, tight-knit community with a working-class and small-business economic base. Class sizes are necessarily small, and the building combines K-8 grades under one roof. For families seeking a small-scale neighborhood school in a stable, affordable rural setting, Nettle Creek offers that environment. For families seeking specialized programs, athletics across multiple grades, or extensive course breadth, the school's size will constrain those options. A parent evaluating this school should visit in person, speak with current families about the daily experience and how the mixed-grade setting works, and clarify the assessment patterns and any gaps in the testing data with the building principal.
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