The top reported proficiency rate is 71% in Science. The lowest is 67% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Spoon River Valley Elem School
Spoon River Valley Elementary School serves prekindergarten through fifth grade in London Mills, a small rural village along the Spoon River in Fulton County, roughly thirty miles west of Peoria. The school is part of Spoon River Valley CUSD 4, a consolidated rural district that also operates a junior high and high school on a shared campus east of the village where Illinois Routes 97 and 116 meet. The school's enrollment is small, with families spread across five surrounding communities: Ellisville, Fairview, London Mills, Maquon, and Rapatee.
The elementary's student body is predominantly white, with a small portion of students identifying as Hispanic or multiracial. Students with limited English proficiency and those receiving special education services are present in the enrollment, though exact counts are not publicly reported. Free or reduced price lunch eligibility data was not available. The school does not carry Title I status, which typically indicates that fewer than a specified threshold of students qualify for federal poverty programs, though the context of a small rural district means resources remain modest.
On the most recent state assessments (IAR in English language arts and mathematics, and ISA 2.0 in science), the school shows variable performance across grades. In third grade, proficiency rates are below the midpoint, with roughly four in ten students meeting standards in math and about half in language arts. Fourth and fifth grades perform considerably stronger, with roughly three-quarters of students proficient in both subjects by fourth grade and climbing further in fifth grade math. Fifth-grade science proficiency sits around seven in ten students. The trend suggests that performance strengthens as students progress through the upper elementary grades. State testing at the sixth grade and above is not reported for this school because it serves only through fifth grade. All tested students participated in the assessments.
Across proficiency measures in tested subjects and grades, this school's overall performance places it in the top quartile among the six districts in Fulton County. That positioning reflects the stronger results in fourth and fifth grades offsetting the softer third-grade numbers. A parent may want to look into the school's instructional approach in the primary grades to understand what support is available for early readers and mathematicians.
London Mills and the surrounding Spoon River Valley communities represent rural living with a quiet, residential character. The village sits in a micropolitan statistical area, and most families own their homes. Median home values are modest, and the cost of living runs below the national average. The area has experienced slow, gradual population decline over recent years rather than growth, with no major new housing developments reported. Employment in the immediate village is small, so most working residents commute out to larger job centers in Canton, Galesburg, or Peoria. Daily life is car-dependent; there is no fixed-route public transit within the village. The principal civic anchor is Riverside Park along the Spoon River, home to seasonal community gatherings and a historic bridge listed on the National Register.
The district itself is very small, enrolling just under a thousand students across all grades. In 2022, the district expanded an athletics co-op with Cuba High School to include Lewistown for football, forming the Lewistown/Cuba/Spoon River Valley Miners football team. For a district of this size, pooling athletic resources with neighbors is what makes a full high school football program possible and is a lasting factor for families weighing extracurricular options. Beyond that structural change, no recent major curriculum overhauls, referenda, or property-tax shifts surfaced in available sources.
See more original research from School Decision →