Kingsley Elementary and the Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies both dropped from the “commendable” category to the “targeted” category in the newly released 2025 Illinois State Report Card.
“The data reveal particular areas that may require focused attention and resources to strengthen student outcomes and overall school performance,” Superintendent Angel Turner wrote to Evanston/Skokie School District 65 families on Oct. 30.
The Illinois State Report Card is an annual report of each public school’s performance across the state, put together by the Illinois State Board of Education. The report card relies heavily on scores on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness, a statewide standardized test students take multiple times each year.
The designations are made by combining a number of factors, including achievement, growth and chronic absenteeism. “Targeted” schools enter a four-year cycle of school improvement monitored by the Illinois State Board of Education and receive special grant funding.
There are five levels designated on the Illinois School Report Card, and the “targeted” category is in the middle of the pack. Before they were downgraded, both schools were ”commendable,” the second-best designation in the state. All other schools in District 65 were placed in the “commendable” category this year, except Orrington Elementary, which maintained its spot in the highest category, “exemplary.”
A “targeted” designation indicates a school where one or more student demographic groups performs at or below the level of the “all students” group in the lowest-performing 5% of schools.
Bessie Rhodes is slated to close after the 2025–2026 school year, and Kingsley is considered a top candidate for closure in the latest round of Evanston/Skokie School District 65 board conversations.
Measuring proficiency complicated by cutoff score changes
The state board voted this summer to lower cutoff scores for students to be deemed proficient in math and English language arts for grades 3 through 8 on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR). These cut scores represent the score a student must meet or exceed in order to be considered proficient. The ISBE change means that students can hit lower math and English language arts scores than in the past to be considered on grade level. At the same time, the state board raised standards for the science exam. District 65 officials released the percentages of students reaching proficiency under both the old and new cut scores in the district’s most recent IAR report.
But the state-created report cards use the new, lower cut scores for 2025.
Several measures, including IAR achievement, are used to place a school into a category like “targeted” or “commendable.”
Students in Evanston as a whole performed above the state average, with 64% of District 65 students meeting or exceeding grade level expectations in English Language Arts, compared to 52% of students statewide. In math, 53% of Evanston students performed at or above grade level, compared to a state average of 38%.
But achievement fell for Black and low-income students at Kingsley in 2025.
At Kingsley, 82% of Black students met or exceeded grade level expectations in math in 2024. In 2025, that number fell to just 39%. For low-income students, the percentage of students achieving or exceeding grade level proficiency fell from 66% to 40%.
Black and low-income students at most other schools did not experience these same dramatic drops in achievement according to the Illinois Report Card.
In 2024 at Bessie Rhodes, 100% of students with disabilities met or exceeded math proficiency — that fell to just 12% in 2025. In 2024, 60% of English learners at Bessie Rhodes met or exceeded math expectations. By 2025, that percentage dropped to just 23%.
Significant declines in growth
Another measure is growth percentiles, which show the growth of students on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness relative to the growth of other students in the state who had a similar scale score in the preceding school year.
In 2024, both Black and low income Kingsley students had lower than expected average math growth, with an indicator score in the 41st percentile. In 2025, that percentile was 0.
At Bessie Rhodes, English Language Arts growth dropped from the 63rd percentile in 2024 to the 52nd in 2025 among English learners. Math growth among Bessie Rhodes students with disabilities dropped from the 51st percentile in 2024 to just the 18th in 2025.
Among all students at Bessie Rhodes, English Language Arts growth dropped from the 82nd percentile to the 61st between 2024 and 2025. In math, growth among all students fell from the 46th percentile in 2024 to the 29th in 2025.
The looming impact of school closures
The District 65 school board voted on the closure of Bessie Rhodes in June 2024, and the school will close at the end of the 2025-2026 school year, and based on the most recent school board meeting, Kingsley seems to be a likely candidate for the next closure — though that isn’t yet set in stone.
Other schools in the Haven Middle School feeder pattern that have been part of the recent school closure conversation include Lincolnwood Elementary, Willard Elementary and Orrington Elementary. Lincolnwood and Willard both maintained their “commendable” status on the state report card in 2025, and Orrington maintained its “exemplary” rating — the highest possible designation.
But comparisons between the schools were difficult to come by, as Orrington’s report card did not have 2024 data for all subgroups. Hannah Dillow, spokesperson for District 65, did not immediately have a response as to why that data was not available.
Growth in both math and ELA dropped slightly from 2024 to 2025 at Orrington among all students; at both Willard and Lincolnwood, students made gains in ELA growth.
At Lincolnwood, the most dramatic drop was in math growth, which fell from the 52nd percentile of growth in 2024 to the 38th percentile in 2025.
“We know there will always be room to grow, but I remain extremely proud of the progress our students have made in the past year,” Turner wrote.