Olympia West Elem Sch, Minier IL

Original Research by School Decision on Olympia West Elem Sch

Olympia West Elementary serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Minier, a small farming village in Tazewell County, roughly half an hour west of Bloomington. The school sits on School Street in the compact village center, within walking distance of the library, village office, and small main-street businesses. Its enrollment is small, around a few hundred students spread across seven grades from pre-K through fifth, with the student body predominantly white and drawn from the local farm and rural residential community.

The school's test results show uneven performance across subjects and grades. In English language arts, proficiency runs stronger: third and fourth graders show proficiency rates in the upper 60s and low 70s, and fifth graders reach above 80 percent. Mathematics tells a different story. Third graders post proficiency around 40 percent, fourth graders around 50 percent, and fifth graders around 54 percent. Science, tested only in fifth grade, sits at roughly 60 percent. The school's overall proficiency index places it above the midpoint among the 14 schools in Tazewell County with comparable data, a respectable standing that rests more on the relative strength of reading than on consistent breadth. Testing participation rates are at or near 100 percent for most grades and subjects.

A parent considering Olympia West should understand that the school's mathematics performance lags noticeably behind its reading performance, a pattern that may warrant looking into the school's approach to math instruction and whether targeted supports are in place. The school district, Olympia CUSD 16, adopted two significant changes in 2024 and 2025 that will affect school funding and programming going forward: voters approved a district tax-rate restructuring in March 2024 that channels new revenue toward facility repairs and student programs, with money arriving in summer 2025, and a countywide school facility sales tax took effect in July 2025 to fund building upgrades, school resource officers, and mental health staff. These changes signal the district's commitment to modernizing its facilities and expanding support services, and mean the school environment will likely see improvement over the next several years.

The village itself has a stable but slowly declining population, with a small-town character and an economy centered on agriculture, education, and health care. Housing is affordable relative to state and national benchmarks. Minier has no public transit; families drive to work and to schools at the middle and high school level, which operate on a separate consolidated campus near Stanford, outside the village. The elementary school's compact location within Minier keeps families anchored to the village for their younger children's education before they move to the larger campus for middle and high school.

Olympia West fits a family seeking a small, local elementary school in a rural setting with reading-focused instruction, modest math performance that may need closer watching, and a district actively investing in facilities and support staff. The school serves its community directly and sits at the center of a quiet farming town where most families have deep local roots.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 340%

School 40% · District 47% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Grade 450%

School 50% · District 45% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 554%

School 54% · District 49% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 24 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 369%

School 69% · District 62% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 25 pts above state median · ▲ 13 pts above county median

Grade 471%

School 71% · District 53% · ▲ 17 pts above district

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

Grade 581%

School 81% · District 78% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▲ 29 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Science

Grade 560%

School 60% · District 55% · ▲ 5 pts above district

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

This schoolOlympia CUSD 16, 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 5Lower-income36%Higher-income44%8 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income27%Higher-income24%3 pp gap