Norwood Elem School, Peoria IL - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Norwood Elem School

Norwood Elem School is a small Pre-K-8 school in the Norwood ESD 63 district, located on the west side of Peoria. The school serves grades 5 through 8 and carries a student body of just over 100 students, making it a tight-knit community where the school can likely maintain strong relationships between staff and families.

The student composition is predominantly white, with smaller shares of multiracial, Hispanic, and Black students. The school's enrollment leans toward the upper grades, with the 8th grade the largest cohort. Data on free-and-reduced-price lunch eligibility and special education or English learner populations were not available, so families seeking that information should contact the school directly.

On state testing, the school's results reveal a clear pattern: proficiency declines significantly as students move through the upper grades. In grade 5, about four in ten students met state proficiency in math, and about half met it in English language arts. By grade 8, those numbers drop considerably. In math, only a small handful of students in 8th grade reached proficiency; in science testing at that level, fewer than one in six did. The trajectory suggests either that older cohorts entered the school with lower baseline skills, or that the school faces growing challenges supporting students at the secondary level. A parent may want to look into this further with the school directly, asking what instructional strategies are in place for students who enter 8th grade below grade level and what the school is doing to address the steeper performance gaps at that level.

English language arts performance is somewhat more stable across grades than math, holding in the 50 percent range in grades 6 and 7, then dropping to the mid-40s by 8th grade. In science, grade 5 proficiency sits just above two in five, while grade 8 science proficiency is very low.

When placed against other districts in Peoria County, Norwood's overall proficiency index falls below the midpoint. The school sits well down the distribution of county districts on this measure, a positioning that reflects the declining achievement profile evident in the grade-by-grade data.

The Peoria housing market around the school carries modest home values and rental costs, with homeownership affordability slightly better than the state benchmark. The neighborhood is car-oriented outside of the downtown and Warehouse District; the school's West Farmington Road location is not in a highly walkable zone. Peoria itself is in a slow-growth, redevelopment-focused phase, with investment concentrated in adaptive reuse downtown rather than broad neighborhood expansion.

The district brief found no major recent changes in policy or curriculum that would reshape the school's direction, so families can expect continuity rather than transition.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 544%

School 44% · District 44%

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

Grade 619%

School 19% · District 19%

▼ 4 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 735%

School 35% · District 35%

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Grade 86%

School 6% · District 6%

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 556%

School 56% · District 56%

▲ 4 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 655%

School 55% · District 55%

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

Grade 751%

School 51% · District 51%

even with state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

Grade 844%

School 44% · District 44%

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Science

Grade 541%

School 41% · District 41%

▲ 4 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

Grade 815%

School 15% · District 15%

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

This schoolNorwood ESD 63, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.