State Report Cards

The most recent Illinois state report cards for District 401 as a whole and its individual schools were released on Oct. 30, 2019. They cover the 2018-19 school year. Links to these report cards are located below (scroll down).

All four of District 401's eligible schools received a summative designation of "Commendable School" as part of their respective 2019 report cards:

► Elmwood Elementary School
► John Mills Elementary School
► Elm Middle School
► Elmwood Park High School

Every year the Illinois State Board of Education releases report cards that show how the state's public school districts and individual public schools have performed on a wide range of educational goals. This is done in compliance with Section 10-17a of the Illinois School Code.

In a letter to the Elmwood Park community, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Nicolas D. Wade highlighted some of the District's accomplishments as documented in the 2019 report cards.

"In short," he wrote, "Elmwood Park CUSD #401 has shown statistically significant and legitimate growth in many performance indicators concerning academic performance and student participation and success in college and career opportunities and being on track for graduation."

To read the complete text of Dr. Wade's letter, please click here. To examine trends and gain historical perspective, older state report cards for District 401 are available here.

About IllinoisReportCard.com

District 401 Contact Information

One Report Card, Three Versions

The state report card for a public school district or any of its individual schools can be found in three versions:

Summary PDF — At IllinoisReportCard.com, a summary of each report card is available in an "at-a-glance" format as a downloadable, printable PDF document.
Interactive Online — Also at IllinoisReportCard.com, each report card is available in a detailed interactive format, which provides an online menu of in-depth information.
Comprehensive PDF — At both IllinoisReportCard.com and ISBE's eReport Card Public Site, a complete "classic" version of each report card is available in a multi-page comprehensive format as a downloadable, printable PDF document.

The report cards are usually issued in late October and cover the previous school year.

What the Report Cards Contain

The state report cards contain numbers and averages at the school, district and state levels for data such as student demographics, school environment and performance on state academic assessments.

Beginning in October 2018, the report cards also incorporated the following features:

A summary dashboard for every school
Each school's summative designation: Exemplary School, Commendable School, Underperforming School or Lowest Performing School
Each district's distance to adequate funding
Other new data points, including academic growth, chronic absenteeism, long-term English Learners, ACCESS scores, feeder school relationships, new entities, educator qualifications, educators with emergency credentials, and principal and superintendent tenure

More information about report-card metrics and data can be found in the Illinois Report Card section of ISBE's website.

What the Summative Designations Mean

► Exemplary School

A designation of "Exemplary" goes to a school that has no underperforming student groups at or below the "all students" group of the lowest 5 percent of all schools, a graduation rate of greater than 67 percent, and whose performance is in the top 10 percent of schools statewide. Schools that receive this designation may apply to serve in the IL-EMPOWER network of learning partners.

► Commendable School

A designation of "Commendable" goes to a school that has no underperforming student groups at or below the "all students" group of the lowest 5 percent of all schools, a graduation rate greater than 67 percent, and whose performance is not in the top 10 percent of schools statewide. Schools that receive this designation may apply to serve in the IL-EMPOWER network of learning partners.

► Underperforming School

A designation of "Underperforming" goes to a school in which one or more student groups is performing at or below the "all students" group of the lowest-performing 5 percent of all schools. Groups must have at least 20 students in at least four indicators as indicated below.

Student groups:

Economically disadvantaged students
Students with disabilities
Students formerly with a disability
English learners
Former English learners

Racial and ethnic groups:

Hispanic or Latino
American Indian or Alaska Native
Asian
Black or African American
Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander
White
Two or more races

Schools that receive this designation will complete a work plan for school improvement and may choose to receive targeted support through IL-EMPOWER.

► Lowest Performing School

A designation of "Lowest Performing" goes to a school that is in the lowest-performing 5 percent of Title I eligible schools in Illinois. It also goes to any high schools with a graduation rate of 67 percent or less. Schools that receive this designation will complete a work plan for school improvement and will receive comprehensive support through IL-EMPOWER.