The top reported proficiency rate is 87% in English language arts. The lowest is 68% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on L J Hauser Jr High School
L J Hauser Jr High School is a regular public junior high in Riverside, Illinois, serving sixth through eighth grade students. The school has an enrollment of roughly a few hundred students across its three grades, distributed fairly evenly across grades six, seven, and eight.
The student body is racially and ethnically diverse. The majority of students are white, with substantial shares identifying as Hispanic, Asian, and multiracial. The school serves a small number of students from other racial or ethnic backgrounds. Data on free-or-reduced-price lunch eligibility and counts of students with individualized education plans or English learner status were not available.
In the most recent state assessments, the school showed solid performance across the grades it serves, with patterns that vary by subject and grade level. In English language arts, proficiency climbs noticeably from sixth to eighth grade, moving from roughly four-fifths of sixth graders meeting or exceeding state standards to near-total proficiency by eighth grade, where nearly nine in ten students test at proficient or above. In math, performance is somewhat lower and flatter: sixth and seventh graders show proficiency in the mid-to-high 60s, while eighth-grade math proficiency reaches the low 70s. Science was tested only in eighth grade, where proficiency sits at a similar level to eighth-grade math. State assessments do not test sixth and seventh grade science, so a full picture across all grades is not available. Participation rates are consistently high, above 98 percent, indicating that assessment data reflects nearly the entire student body.
When schools in Cook County are compared by overall proficiency across all tested subjects and grades, Hauser sits in the top quartile of the county's schools. This positioning reflects strong English language arts performance, particularly in the upper grades, that lifts the school's average.
The school is part of Riverside School District 96, which has made a sustained commitment to instructional coaching that extends across elementary and junior high buildings. Since 2021, the district has grown from one instructional coach to three, with plans for a fourth in the 2025-26 school year. Coaches work inside classrooms alongside teachers to improve instruction. The district also negotiated a multi-year teacher contract in 2021 that improved teacher compensation and stability, factors that can affect classroom continuity and school environment.
Riverside itself is a small, leafy village on Chicago's western edge, roughly nine miles from downtown, built in the late 1800s as one of the first planned suburbs in America. The landscape retains Frederick Law Olmsted's design: curvilinear streets, large wooded lots, naturalistic park spaces, and a strong emphasis on green space. The town is essentially fully built out and stable in population. Commuter access to Chicago runs via the BNSF Metra line, served by many weekday trains. The local housing market shows home values in the mid-range for the Chicago region, with prices up modestly year-over-year. The walk score in central Riverside is high, and much of the village is within walking distance of the depot district and parks. No large private employers sit within the village; residents typically work in Chicago or nearby suburbs.
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