The top reported proficiency rate is 45% in Math. The lowest is 34% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Westfield School
Westfield School serves a small, mixed neighborhood in Winthrop Harbor, a residential village on the Lake Michigan shore at the Illinois-Wisconsin border. The school enrolls young students from pre-K through fourth grade, drawing from a community where about half the population is white, a third are Hispanic, and the remainder represent other groups, including Asian and multiracial families. The enrollment is stable and modest for the grade bands served.
Testing results show that proficiency in mathematics and English language arts falls below the midpoint among Lake County districts. In third grade, roughly three in five students in math reached proficiency, while in fourth grade that proportion dropped sharply to about one in four in both subjects. The third-grade performance gap between math and reading suggests uneven instruction or student readiness across the two domains, and parents may want to look further into what drives the steeper decline in fourth grade. State assessment changes in recent years complicate year-to-year comparison, so readers cannot yet track whether these results reflect a trend or a single snapshot. Testing data for fifth through eighth grades is not available; Westfield School does not serve those grades, which means tested fifth and sixth graders transfer to another building in the district.
The school sits within the residential fabric of Winthrop Harbor rather than on an isolated campus. The village itself is slowly growing, with new traditional-style homes appearing on the west side over recent decades while older mid-century ranch and tri-level homes anchor the east. Housing values are moderate for the region, and the community has a lakefront small-town character anchored by North Point Marina and state recreation areas. Civic life centers around the Metra commuter rail station and the marina, and the village has recently adopted downtown zoning and a streetscape plan to encourage mixed-use development. The setting is quiet and residential with low-density, wooded neighborhoods; most residents own their homes.
Information about school staffing, course offerings, discipline policies, and attendance or early-warning data was not available in the payload. The district brief notes that no recent strategic curriculum changes or major referendums were found, so a reader cannot assess whether the school is mid-reform, stable, or shifting instructional direction. This absence may reflect the small size and stability of a single-school district serving one village, or it may simply indicate limited public documentation. Either way, parents considering Westfield should connect directly with school leadership to understand instructional priorities and any plans to address the proficiency gaps evident in recent testing.
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