Washington Middle School

Washington Middle School is one of the modestly sized middle schools in Washington, Illinois, part of Washington SD 52, with 378 students on its rolls from grades 5 through 8.

Within Washington SD 52, which oversees 2 schools and 820 students, Washington Middle School is one campus in the system.

Looking at the student body, Washington Middle School lists that 91% of students identify as White, making the school strongly White-majority. Beyond that, the school reports 5% multiracial, 4% Hispanic. That composition is broadly in line with Tazewell County as a whole.

In terms of school funding signals, Staff filings list 27 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 13.9:1 students per teacher. That figure is higher than the state norm's 13.0:1 average. Around 25% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. Set against Tazewell County (around 39%), the school's rate is south of typical.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, Washington Middle School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 57.2%, the actual is 67.3%, a residual of +10.2 points.

In the surrounding community, community-level numbers for Tazewell County indicate the typical household earns roughly $77,982 per year, about 28% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 6%. In all, Tazewell County runs 56 public schools (combined enrollment of about 18,581 students), of which Washington Middle School is one.

Lincoln Grade School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.5 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Washington Middle School. On composite proficiency, Washington Middle School comes 4th of 9 in the immediate cluster, higher than the nearby-schools average of 56.6%.

Geographically, the school is in a suburban area.

Looking at the recent track record. Washington Middle School's enrollment has contracted 20% since 2018, when it stood at 472 (now 378). The student-to-teacher ratio fell from 16.3:1 in 2018 to 13.9:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, recent activity here tends to focus on science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.