Franklin Park Middle School, Salem IL

Original Research by School Decision on Franklin Park Middle School

Franklin Park Middle School serves grades four through eight in Salem, a small county-seat city in south-central Illinois. The school enrolls roughly five hundred students, with a student body that is overwhelmingly white and drawn from the families of the surrounding community. The school is located in Salem SD 111, a regular public school district; no recent parent-facing changes in curriculum, governance, or property tax policy were found in public sources.

Academic performance shows a meaningful divide between the school's English language arts results and its mathematics results. In the upper grades, ELA proficiency is notably strong. Grade six and seven students demonstrate proficiency rates well above half the cohort, and grade eight students surpass that further. Grade four shows solid proficiency in ELA as well. The pattern breaks sharply in mathematics. Fourth grade math proficiency sits at a moderate level, but grades five through eight show low proficiency across the board, with fewer than one in three students meeting the state standard in most of those grades. Science proficiency, tested in grades five and eight, shows a similar split: grade five is below half, while grade eight climbs to about two-thirds proficiency.

Across all tested subjects and grades, Franklin Park's overall proficiency index places it above the midpoint among the fifteen districts in Marion County, a positioning that reflects strength in the upper-grade ELA results offsetting the lower mathematics performance. The school does not report free-or-reduced-price-lunch rates or English learner enrollment, so the degree of economic or language diversity within the tested grades is not available from the data.

A parent considering this school should understand that reading and writing skills appear to be a stronger pathway here than mathematics, at least based on state assessment results. The mathematics pattern, in particular the pronounced weakness in the middle elementary grades, may warrant discussion directly with the school about whether specific interventions are in place and how the school addresses students who fall below proficiency in those grades. State testing data for grade three is not available, a gap that reflects the state's grade-level testing structure rather than a reporting gap at this school. No information was available on staffing, course offerings, discipline practices, or attendance.

Salem itself is a modest city anchored by county government, with new economic development underway through industrial expansion and a downtown tax-increment district that is adding housing. Median home values in the area are below the state average, and the estimated monthly mortgage payment is accessible to households with moderate income. The community offers parks, a public library, and civic anchors around the courthouse, with employment concentrated in healthcare, manufacturing, and retail.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 455%

School 55% · District 55%

▲ 18 pts above state median

Grade 520%

School 20% · District 20%

▼ 10 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 619%

School 19% · District 19%

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

Grade 727%

School 27% · District 27%

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Grade 828%

School 28% · District 28%

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 462%

School 62% · District 62%

▲ 14 pts above state median

Grade 536%

School 36% · District 36%

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 18 pts below county median

Grade 674%

School 74% · District 74%

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 28 pts above county median

Grade 779%

School 79% · District 79%

▲ 28 pts above state median · ▲ 36 pts above county median

Grade 881%

School 81% · District 81%

▲ 28 pts above state median · ▲ 35 pts above county median

Science

Grade 530%

School 30% · District 30%

▼ 6 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 863%

School 63% · District 63%

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

This schoolSalem SD 111, 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.