Unity East

Set in Philo, Illinois, Unity East is an intimate K-5 school, operated by Tolono CUSD 7. It instructs 241 students across grades pre-K through 5. That puts it 37% below the typical public school in Illinois, which averages around 381 students.

Tolono CUSD 7 runs 4 schools in total, collectively educating 1,487 students. Unity East is one of those campuses.

In terms of who attends, Unity East logs that the student body is overwhelmingly White (89%); the rest consists of 4% Hispanic, 3% multiracial, 2% Black. The wider county runs roughly 64% White, putting the school's mix considerably more White than the area baseline.

Looking at school resources, Unity East lists 20 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 11.8:1. The state averages around 13.9:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. Roughly 20% of students at Unity East qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. By comparison, Champaign County runs at roughly 53%, so the school's eligibility rate is meaningfully below the surrounding baseline.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, Unity East sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 59.8%; this one delivers 64.5%.

Zooming out to the county, the surrounding county (Champaign County) reports that median household income runs about $63,683, 46% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and roughly 7% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, Champaign County runs 66 public schools (combined enrollment of about 25,919 students), of which Unity East is one.

Yankee Ridge Multilingual School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 5.0 miles from this campus. 2 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 6 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Unity East ranks 1st on composite proficiency, above the local average of 33.2%.

Unity East operates from an outlying location.

Five-year trend. Unity East's enrollment has declined 20% since 2018, when it stood at 300 (now 241). The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 14.6:1 in 2018 to 11.8:1 today.

Inside the community feed, the feed for Unity East typically covers fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.