State report card improves for District 186

Six schools moved up, four moved down, and overall things seem to be improving with proficiency, graduation and chronic absenteeism rates. That in a nutshell is the finding for Springfield’s District 186 schools in the 2025 Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) Report Card that tracks performance at the state’s public schools.

Lanphier High School plus Addams, Fairview, Butler, Wilcox and Dubois Elementary all improved their overall rankings on the state Report Card, while Southeast High School, Grant Middle School and Black Hawk and Enos Elementary all saw their rankings drop. A number of schools had one or more groups that earned top marks in English/Language Arts, math, and/or science proficiency, although comparisons with previous years’ proficiency come with an asterisk because ISBE benchmarks for these areas were changed this year.

The percentage of District 186 students graduating from high school in four years increased by two percentage points from last year to this year, and the percentage of students absent from school has continued to decrease by one percentage point each year. 

District 186 Superintendent Jennifer Gill is pleased with the progress shown on the 2025 Report Card. 

“We know where we need to go, and we’re excited that we are on that path,” Gill said. “We’re excited to have a trajectory that’s showing growth.”

The Springfield Education Association (SEA), the labor union that represents approximately 1,150 District 186 educators and other employees, is also happy with some of the report card results. 

“Overall, it is a report card of more good than bad, and we are not upset about that,” said SEA president Aaron Graves. “We attribute the success to the diligence of committed students, parents, grandparents and guardians who value education, the supportive principals who help empower staff members and students, and the teachers and other educational professionals working within 186 to make it all happen.”

Advance Illinois, an independent policy and advocacy organization that promotes a healthy public education system in the state, noticed a generally positive trend in the 2025 Report Card. 

“It is encouraging to see continued gains on some critical metrics and some narrowing disparities between student groups,” said Advance Illinois president Robin Steans. “Illinois students are continuing to recover from COVID, and it shows.”

However, Steans said that the Report Card shows there is still a lot of work to be done.

“Inequities persist and some stagnating and worrisome data points underscore important ongoing challenges,” Steans said. 

Graves agreed with Steans and said the inequities between individual Springfield schools are “not something to celebrate.”

“Every school in Springfield 186, in which the community’s children and our union members work tirelessly, should be provided with the same opportunities for a serene, calm and safe opportunity to learn,” Graves said. “Every school should be good enough for us to send our own kids to, academically and otherwise. We attribute the continued poor designations to lack of transparency, a general focus on the ‘shiny object’ rather than what needs to be polished, and a system of education that appears not to be troubled by this disparity.”

“We can never count anyone out.”

The ISBE Report Card ranks schools’ performance with what it calls summative designations, which are, in descending order, exemplary (top 10% of all schools), commendable, targeted, comprehensive and intensive.

Lanphier High School moved up from intensive to targeted from 2024 to 2025. Addams and Fairview Elementary rose from comprehensive to commendable, Butler and Wilcox Elementary went up from targeted to commendable, and Dubois Elementary rose from comprehensive to targeted.

“When we see schools like Lanphier move from intensive up to targeted, and Addams School moving to commendable for all of the work that they are doing, those are moments where we can show success,” superintendent Gill said. “Lanphier is a large high school with a lot going on. They moved into a new building, and principal Alicia Miller has put a lot of things into place. To see them recognize this with growth this year is a true celebration.”

The new ratings were celebrated at a recent District 186 School Board meeting by board president Erica Austin.

“We should not count out some of these schools, because a lot of times the perception is that because they are on a certain side of town or because they are underserved, that they can’t possibly meet these expectations,” Austin said. “The schools on that list absolutely surpass everyone’s expectations, so we can never count anyone out.”

Austin is a frequent visitor to District 186 schools, and is inspired by the progress she sees at many of them. 

“Any child can learn and any school can grow. You just have to put the effort into it,” Austin said.  “I had tears in my eyes [when the Report Card results came out] because it lets me know that our work is not in vain. The mentorship that we are giving to these kids is actually working. They are taking it to heart, and it gives me a great feeling.”

Graves said the SEA is proud of the District 186 students and the educators who made those Report Card success stories possible.

“We know how hard it is to make it happen, and are very proud of the work of each school that has done so,” Graves said. “We are also simultaneously troubled to see the continued run of lesser ratings for several of our schools where we know we have lots of wonderful students, parental support and educational professionals working tirelessly every day.”

No District 186 school achieved the top exemplary ranking, but several remained at commendable from 2024 to 2025 including Ball Charter, Iles, Laketown, Lincoln Magnet, Lindsay, McClernand, Owen Marsh, Ridgely, Sandburg, Southern View, and Springfield High. A commendable rating means that a school must have no underperforming student groups and a high school must have a graduation rate higher than 67%.

Of the four schools that declined in their summative designations, Black Hawk, Enos and Southeast High School all dropped from commendable to targeted, while Grant Middle School moved from targeted to comprehensive. Franklin Elementary retained its targeted status. 

District 186 now has four comprehensive schools – Graham, Grant, Lee and Matheny-Withrow – a ranking that places those attendance centers in the lowest-performing 5% of schools in Illinois. There are also four intensive schools, or those that have completed a full four-year comprehensive support school improvement cycle, but whose performance remains in the lowest-performing 5%. Those include Feitshans and Harvard Park Elementary plus Jefferson and Washington Middle schools.

“When we look at our schools that have just one subgroup that didn’t make it, we know exactly what we need to do,” Gill said. “But other schools are grappling with the idea of moving down, so we want to make sure we’re doing everything that we can to support them on their journey.”

That support includes a continuation of the instructional and leadership support from the district’s Teaching and Learning Team and Instructional Support Services Team, which aims to improve school culture, teaching and learning practices. The key is to provide consistent support throughout the district, according to assistant superintendent of teaching, learning and school culture Nicole Moody.

“Consistency means that our students are at school, they’re getting their work done, they have all of their assignments, and families understand what students are expected to do,” Moody said.

“Improve student growth and proficiency” 

District 186 officials are pleased with the overall proficiency scores in reading and mathematics that are contained in the 2025 Report Card. Reading proficiency in the district is at 35%, up from 26% in 2024 and 23% in 2023. Math proficiency stands at 21%, up from 17% in 2024 and 16% in 2023. 

Science proficiency, measured separately at the fifth, eighth and 11th grade levels, reached a high point last year in District 186 but went down slightly across the board this year. 

These year-to-year comparisons aren’t as straightforward as they have been previously. The ISBE adopted new assessment performance levels for this year’s rankings that are designed to better track academic achievement and college readiness.

“Prior performance levels mislabeled many students, often indicating that students were less academically successful and prepared for college than they actually were,” said ISBE in a prepared statement. “The new benchmarks for proficiency align across English/Language Arts, math and science assessments and grade levels and reflect real college and career readiness expectations. As a result, the 2025 proficiency rates set a new baseline and cannot be compared to prior years.” 

District 186 has taken these new measurements into account while claiming growth successes for Springfield students.         

“District 186 officials report growth in the overall proficiency scores. While this increase in proficiency is in part due to the ‘right sizing’ of scores, the academic increases show growth and movement in the right direction,” Superintendent Gill said. “District 186 believes that the implementation of new curricula and teaching practices in both ELA and math have also contributed to the increases in both subject areas. The new Illinois benchmarks for proficiency now better reflect the teaching and learning happening in classrooms, which prepare students for college and career readiness.” 

There are district success stories contained in the proficiency data, as several schools had one or more groups of students that earned nearly all of the possible points for proficiency in English/Language Arts (ELA), math or science. These include Addams, Ball Charter, Butler, Blackhawk, Hazel Dell, Franklin, Iles, Lincoln Magnet, Lindsay, Owen Marsh, Sandburg, Southern View, Wilcox and Springfield High School.

“We plan to continue to utilize the District and School Improvement Plans to improve student growth and proficiency with academics alongside social, emotional, and behavioral learning supports,” assistant superintendent Moody said. “We will continue to build understanding on what these standards mean and how the standards are taught and learned within our multitiered system of support.”

Graves credited SEA members for being a part of the improved English/Language Arts scores.

“Our union members pushed hard through our Literacy Task Force, along with key community members, to make certain that central office administration made the transition to an improved elementary and middle school literacy curriculum,” Graves said. “Every staff member involved in literacy has worked very hard to improve our instruction, differentiate classroom instruction, and has juggled a plethora of interventions as well.”

The SEA is proud of the small gains made in math proficiency, but Graves said the best way to further improve the scores is for District 186 parents to become more involved in preparing their children. Students should know their shapes entering kindergarten, know basic addition and subtraction facts by the end of second grade, and know basic multiplication and division by the end of fourth grade.

The district-wide drop in science proficiency, however, is nothing to celebrate. 

“We know that, in this rapidly changing world, the students that we are developing will need specific scientific skill sets in order to traverse the global landscape,” Graves said. “SEA has lobbied hard to bring back a focus on science and social studies after seeing a lack of basic scientific knowledge, history and geographical awareness. We are hopeful to see this effort materialize in the purchase of elementary curricula, improved professional development, and time set aside for students to discover the wonders of science and the earth around them.”

“We’re getting back to those pre-COVID numbers again.”

The percentage of students graduating in four years from the three District 186 high schools increased by two percentage points from 2024 to 2025. That number has been steadily increasing over the last three years.

The Lanphier High School graduation rate is now 71%, up from 65% in 2024 and 53% in 2023. Southeast High School’s graduation rate is at 75%, up from 70% in 2024 and 60% in 2023. At Springfield High School, the graduation rate is 84%, up from 83% in 2024 and 74% in 2023.

“We are so impressed that they were all well over 70% and into the eighties,” Superintendent Gill said. “Across all three high schools we’re seeing continual growth patterns for a 13% increase over the last three years. So it feels like we’re getting back to those pre-COVID numbers again, which is a celebratory moment.” 

The rate for students graduating in five and six years has also remained steady. This measurement tracks students that are not able to finish their high school credit requirements in four years, but remain in school to complete those requirements and earn their high school diplomas. 

All three high schools also increased the percentage of students who are on track for graduation, beginning in their ninth-grade year, by six percentage points. Assistant Superintendent Moody said there has been a diligent effort over the last three years to increase support for students and families to remain on track for graduation, or get back on track as needed. 

“We have multiple indicators of success that we look at for our schools and our district, and those are about getting our students ready for college and careers,” Moody said. “So our graduation rate is important, and we’ve really been putting a lot of effort into making sure our students have a strong start in high school and contributing to that is our ninth grade on track.”

“Impacts student learning and achievement”

Forty-one percent may seem like a large number when you’re talking about students who are chronically absent from school.  A student is considered chronically absent if they miss 10% or more of their total school days, regardless of the reason for the absence. 

The District 186 chronic absentee rate is 41% in 2025. But that’s an improvement on the 42% from last year and 43% in 2023. The chronic absenteeism number includes any absence, including the five mental health days which students are allowed each year. 

A student is considered chronically absent if they miss two days a month during the school year for any reason.

“Chronic absenteeism remains a challenge and an area of concern for improvement within our district and Springfield community,” Superintendent Gill said. “Several more schools would be commendable if it were not for their chronic absenteeism rates. Although we communicate relentlessly, this is largely out of our control in some cases.”

Assistant Superintendent Moody said although the chronic absenteeism numbers are improving, it remains a focus for the district.   

“We know there are challenges in getting kids to school,” Moody said. “We have staff and liaisons that help to support our families and students with getting to school. And not just getting to school, getting to school on time.”

But absenteeism is a bigger problem at some schools, and those facilities need extra help.   

“Our chronic absenteeism rates vary across schools, so we are working at every school,” Moody said. “There are some targeted interventions that we need to do to increase supports at certain schools where there may be more challenges to make sure that all of our students are at school and getting their lessons that they need for their next steps.” 

Advance Illinois President Robin Steans said the challenges facing District 186 are not unique in the state’s public school system.

“Like many districts across the state and country, Springfield is struggling on a number of fronts, including with chronic absenteeism, which we know impacts student learning and achievement,” Steans said. “It is encouraging to see strong teacher retention, and when taken as a whole, the district’s performance should remind us that schools have a hard and essential job to do and the state needs to quicken its work to bring District 186 and every other underfunded district to adequacy so they can increase support, resources and rigor for students.”

The SEA’s Graves said the chronic absenteeism data, while not good, is “trending in the right direction at least.”

“As an old colleague of mine used to say to parents, ‘You get your kids to school rested, on time, every day, and we can do miracles with them,’” Graves said. “SEA implores parents to partner with us and get their children to school, ready and willing to learn and be part of the academic culture, and then watch them grow.”  

This article appears in December 4-10, 2025.