The top reported proficiency rate is 80% in English language arts. The lowest is 46% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on New Athens Jr High
New Athens Jr High serves the three middle-school grades in a small community unit school district on the Kaskaskia River in southern Illinois, roughly an hour from the St. Louis metro area. The school enrolls a small cohort drawn almost entirely from the local village, which is predominantly white and oriented toward blue-collar, sales, and office work. Recent state testing data covers the grades the school actually serves, and the picture that emerges is one of uneven proficiency: strong reading performance in grades six and seven, weaker mathematics outcomes, and a science result in eighth grade that lags behind.
The data available for English language arts shows proficiency trending upward through the grades. Sixth graders showed solid performance, while seventh graders demonstrated stronger results. Eighth grade held most of that gain. By contrast, mathematics proficiency begins around the midpoint in sixth grade, rises slightly in seventh grade, then drops noticeably in eighth grade. Science proficiency, measured only in eighth grade, falls below half. These results place the school in the top quartile for overall proficiency when compared against districts in St. Clair County, a position that reflects strength in reading partly offsetting the mathematics and science softness.
The school's test participation rates were near universal in all grades with reported data. No state testing data was available for grades three through five because New Athens Jr High serves only the middle grades; younger students attend the district's elementary school.
The enrollment is small. Sixth and seventh grades have cohorts of roughly grade-size composition, while eighth grade is larger. Nearly all students in the school identify as white; demographic diversity is minimal. Data on free-and-reduced-price lunch eligibility, special education enrollment, and English learner status were not available, leaving questions about economic disadvantage and whether the school is meeting the needs of students with disabilities or language barriers unanswered.
New Athens itself is a blue-collar river village in slow demographic decline, with homeownership dominating and car-dependent daily life. The local housing market shows modest values with recent modest depreciation. No major recent district curriculum or staffing changes were documented in publicly available materials. The school's website and program data were not provided, so the breadth of course offerings, extracurricular programs, and instructional approaches remain uncharacterized.
For a family considering this school, the main picture is a small, familiar community-based middle school where reading instruction appears to be working reasonably well but where mathematics and science performance warrant closer conversation with the school about support, teaching approach, and student preparation. The school sits well within its county peer group on proficiency, but parents may want to inquire directly about tutoring, remediation pathways, and how eighth-grade readiness for high school algebra is being addressed given the mathematics decline visible in that grade.
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