Orion High School

Orion High School operates as a very small four-year high school in Orion, Illinois, run under Orion CUSD 223. Current enrollment sits at 285 students spanning grades 9 through 12. That puts it 66% leaner than the typical public school in Illinois, which averages around 834 students.

Orion CUSD 223 runs 3 schools in total, collectively educating 963 students. Orion High School is one of those campuses.

Looking at the student body, Orion High School lists that nearly all students (93%) are White. The remainder looks like 2% multiracial.

In terms of school funding signals, On paper, Orion High School has 19 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 14.7:1. The state averages around 13.8:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. Roughly 18% of students at Orion High School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. Set against Henry County (around 43%), the school's rate is meaningfully below typical.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Orion High School sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 61.2%; this one delivers 50.9%.

In the broader community, ACS estimates for Henry County put the typical household earns roughly $71,911 per year, about 25% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 6%. Orion High School is one of 28 public schools in Henry County (combined enrollment of about 7,723 students).

Nearest neighbor: Orion Middle School, around 0.4 miles off. 2 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Orion High School comes 3rd of 9 in the immediate cluster, above the nearby-schools average of 44.8%.

Geographically, the school is in a small-town area.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Orion High School has edged down 16%, going from 341 students in 2018 to 285 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 15.9:1 in 2018 to 14.7:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, recent activity here tends to focus on enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. Members of the school community can share what they know.