Tonica Grade School

Set in Tonica, Illinois, Tonica Grade School is an one-room-style elementary school, one of the schools within Tonica CCSD 79. It serves 98 students across grades pre-K through 8. That puts it 74% leaner than the typical public school in Illinois, which averages around 381 students.

Tonica Grade School is a school of Tonica CCSD 79, the district that handles curriculum, staffing, and budget for the campus.

Demographically, Tonica Grade School records that 86% of students identify as White, making the school strongly White-majority; the rest looks like 12% Hispanic. That composition is broadly in line with LaSalle County as a whole.

In terms of school funding signals, Staff filings list 12 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 8.2:1 students per teacher. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 13.9:1, putting Tonica Grade School tighter than the state norm the norm. About 42% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. That share is south of LaSalle County's rate of about 53%.

With demographic context factored in, Tonica Grade School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 47.4%, the actual is 36.8%, a residual of -10.6 points.

In the area at large, ACS estimates for LaSalle County put the typical household earns roughly $73,045 per year, roughly 21% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 11% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across LaSalle County's 54 public schools (combined enrollment of about 14,523 students), Tonica Grade School is one campus in the mix.

The closest other public school is Washington Elem School, roughly 5.3 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a ten-mile radius, suggesting a relatively low-density school footprint. On composite proficiency, Tonica Grade School comes 7th of 9 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 40.9%.

The campus sits in a rural setting.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count declined 42%: 168 students in 2018 compared to 98 in 2025. White enrollment moved from 92% to 86% across the same window. Class-load math has tightened: from 10.8:1 in 2018 to 8.2:1 in 2025.

On this page, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.