The top reported proficiency rate is 22% in English language arts. The lowest is 5% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Pleasant Acres Elem School
Pleasant Acres Elementary serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Rantoul, a small village in northern Champaign County shaped by its railroad and military history. The school sits within a community that has slowly remade itself since the 1993 closure of Chanute Air Force Base, with housing stock dominated by mid-century homes built for airmen and ongoing downtown revitalization efforts.
The school's academic profile is weak across the board. State testing data from 2024-25 shows proficiency rates in single digits to low teens across mathematics and English language arts in the grades tested: third-grade math at roughly one in ten, fourth-grade math at essentially zero, fifth-grade math at roughly one in thirty, and fifth-grade science at roughly one in five. English language arts runs slightly higher, with third grade around one in six and fifth grade closer to one in four, but remains substantially below typical district and state benchmarks. When compared against the other districts in Champaign County, Pleasant Acres' overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile. A parent should recognize that test scores here signal very substantial academic struggle and may want to explore with the district what factors are contributing, what supports exist for students working below grade level, and what the school's action plan is for improvement.
The school's enrollment is modest, at roughly three hundred students distributed across six grades. The student body is diverse: roughly four in ten students identify as Hispanic, roughly three in ten as Black, and the remainder across other groups including white, multi-racial, Asian, and other backgrounds. The data does not report free-or-reduced-price lunch eligibility or special-education enrollment rates, so a parent cannot assess economic disadvantage or service intensity from the available information.
A major district-level change has just taken effect. Rantoul City School District 137 reorganized its elementary buildings into what it calls a Companion Schools Model, pairing buildings by grade band rather than serving K-5 in each building. Pleasant Acres is now a K-2 school paired with Broadmeadow (grades 3-5). This means families' elementary experience is split across two buildings as children progress. The district simultaneously launched a new literacy framework with coaching from Focused Schools, a shift in how reading instruction works across every elementary classroom. These are durable changes to school assignment and teaching method that affect the actual experience of attending this school.
The district also opened a new PreK center next to Pleasant Acres in 2025, funded through county school facilities sales tax, replacing temporary church space. This is a material upgrade to early-childhood infrastructure for families choosing to enroll.
Rantoul itself remains a quiet, car-dependent community. The downtown core is seeing streetscape improvements and a shared-use path extension, but most of the village is spread out and auto-oriented. Civic anchors include the public library on West Flessner Avenue, village parks tied into the new path, an aquatic center on the former base, the Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum, and Amtrak service at the local station. Major employers include manufacturers and distributors such as Jeld-Wen Windows and Doors, Vista Outdoor, and ConAir, alongside educational and healthcare services.
Housing values in the area are below state and national benchmarks, making it a relatively affordable market. Median home values are substantially lower than the Illinois and national baselines, and rental costs are similarly modest. Mortgage affordability is reasonable relative to income, though a parent may want to confirm current market conditions directly.
For families considering Pleasant Acres, the school offers neighborhood convenience and access to a newly invested PreK program. The test performance data, however, indicates this is a school facing serious academic challenges. This is not a profile where a parent should expect strong baseline performance or extensive advanced offerings. Instead, a parent would be deciding whether the school's location, emerging district literacy work, and community setting meet their family's needs despite the documented academic struggle, and whether the school can articulate a credible plan to improve outcomes.
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