Meridian Elementary School

Set in Mounds, Illinois, Meridian Elementary School is a small elementary school, part of Meridian CUSD 101. It enrolls 213 students across grades pre-K through 5. That puts it 44% leaner than the typical public school in Illinois, which averages around 381 students.

Within Meridian CUSD 101, which oversees 2 schools and 419 students, Meridian Elementary School is one campus in the system.

Looking at the student body, Meridian Elementary School lists that 51% of students identify as Black, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups. Beyond that, the school logs 33% White, 13% multiracial, 3% Hispanic. By comparison, Pulaski County as a whole is about 34% Black, so the school skews noticeably more Black than its surroundings.

On the resource side, Meridian Elementary School reports 20 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 10.7:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 13.9:1, putting Meridian Elementary School tighter than the state norm the norm. An estimated 95% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. That share is above Pulaski County's rate of about 81%.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Meridian Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 16.5%, the actual is 21.1%, a residual of +4.6 points.

In the area at large, community-level numbers for Pulaski County indicate median household income runs about $42,463, roughly 13% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 17%. In all, Pulaski County runs 5 public schools (combined enrollment of about 750 students), of which Meridian Elementary School is one.

Meridian High School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.0 miles from this campus. Within ten miles, there are 3 other public schools, a sparser pattern than typical urban areas. On composite proficiency, Meridian Elementary School comes 5th of 8 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 23.2%.

Meridian Elementary School operates from a countryside location.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count edged down 35%: 329 students in 2018 compared to 213 in 2025. Class-load math has pulled in: from 14.7:1 in 2018 to 10.7:1 in 2025.

Inside the community feed, posts here usually surface around fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.