Pontiac Jr High School, Pontiac IL

Original Research by School Decision on Pontiac Jr High School

Pontiac Junior High School serves grades six through eight in a county-seat city of roughly mid-size in central Illinois. The school enrolls about three hundred students fairly evenly divided across the three grades, with a student body that is roughly three-quarters white, a sixth Hispanic, and smaller shares Black, multiracial, and Asian. No data on free-or-reduced-price lunch, special education, or English learner populations were available.

The most recent state testing results paint a picture of academic struggle. In English language arts, performance varies sharply by grade. Sixth-graders show proficiency rates in the low-to-mid range; seventh-graders perform notably stronger, with about half meeting proficiency; eighth-graders land in the mid-range. Math proficiency is substantially lower across the board. Sixth and seventh graders both fall in the low-to-mid teens; eighth graders drop to single digits. In science, tested only at eighth grade, roughly a quarter of students meet proficiency. Participation rates are high across all assessments, above ninety-five percent, suggesting the low numbers reflect actual achievement rather than testing gaps.

These results place the school in the bottom quartile among the districts in Livingston County on overall proficiency. A parent may want to look further into what instructional changes, support programs, or resource priorities the school and district are pursuing to address this performance gap.

Pontiac sits as the county seat with a mixed economy anchored by manufacturing, health care, and retail. Housing is affordable; median home prices run well below state and national benchmarks. Downtown features a walkable historic district centered on the courthouse square, with summer concerts, murals, and the restored Amtrak station drawing both residents and visitors. The community includes established neighborhoods of older homes and newer residential subdivisions. No major new housing development was confirmed.

Pontiac CCSD 429 also operates three elementary schools serving grades pre-K through five, and the high school is managed by a separate district. Data on recent district-level changes, curriculum initiatives, or budget shifts were not found in available sources.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 614%

School 14% · District 14%

▼ 9 pts below state median

Grade 719%

School 19% · District 19%

▼ 10 pts below state median

Grade 86%

School 6% · District 6%

▼ 16 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 626%

School 26% · District 26%

▼ 24 pts below state median

Grade 757%

School 57% · District 57%

▲ 6 pts above state median

Grade 835%

School 35% · District 35%

▼ 18 pts below state median

Science

Grade 827%

School 27% · District 27%

▼ 13 pts below state median

This schoolPontiac CCSD 429, 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.