Bureau Valley North

Bureau Valley North, an intimate elementary-level community in Walnut, Illinois, run under Bureau Valley CUSD 340, serves 183 students, covering grades pre-K through 5. By comparison, Illinois's public schools average about 381 students each, so Bureau Valley North sits 52% leaner than that benchmark.

Within Bureau Valley CUSD 340, which oversees 4 schools and 906 students, Bureau Valley North is one campus in the system.

On the student-mix side, Bureau Valley North reports that nearly all students (89%) are White; the rest breaks down as 9% Hispanic, 2% multiracial. That mix tracks the wider county fairly closely.

On the income-and-resources front, Staff filings list 21 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 8.6:1 students per teacher. The state averages around 13.9:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. About 50% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

After controlling for student poverty, Bureau Valley North performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 42.8%, the actual is 49.2%, a residual of +6.4 points.

Zooming out to the county, Bureau County reports that median household earnings sit near $69,257, roughly 22% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 8% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Bureau County's 22 public schools (combined enrollment of about 4,547 students), Bureau Valley North is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Ohio Com Cons Grade School, around 7.0 miles off. Within ten miles, there are 4 other public schools, a sparser pattern than typical urban areas. Among the 6 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Bureau Valley North ranks 4th on composite proficiency, beneath the local average of 50.9%.

The campus sits in a rural setting.

Over the past 7-year window. Over the past 7-year window, the student count ticked down 55%: 403 students in 2018 compared to 183 in 2025. The Hispanic share of enrollment rose from 4% to 9% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio pulled in from 14.5:1 in 2018 to 8.6:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, posts here usually surface around classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Members of the school community can share what they know.