Downers Grove North High School earned the state's highest performance rating on the 2026 Illinois Report Card, released Friday, Oct. 30.
Downers Grove North received an "exemplary" designation and Downers Grove South received an "approaching exemplary" ranking, according to Patch. Both are among the top two tiers in a brand-new state rating system.
"We are proud that both of our schools have earned one of the state's highest performance designations," Community High School District 99 Superintendent Hank Thiele said in a statement. "These results reflect the hard work of our school community."
The ratings arrive under a redesigned accountability framework the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) calls Profiles of Performance. Schools now fall into one of five categories: Exemplary, Approaching Exemplary, Commendable, Developing and Comprehensive.
The old system capped Exemplary status at the top 10% of schools statewide. Under the new approach, ISBE judges each school against fixed statewide criteria rather than ranking schools against one another, according to Shaw Local. That shift pushed the share of schools rated Exemplary statewide to 27%, Chalkbeat Chicago reported.
The annual report card evaluates schools on academic proficiency, graduation rates, student attendance, educator experience and other factors, according to Patch.
District 99 lists a 92.8% graduation rate and 4,630 students enrolled on its website.
Statewide picture
Across Illinois, proficiency ticked up in all three tested subjects, according to the Illinois Association of School Boards. English language arts proficiency rose to 55.4%, up from 52.4%. Math proficiency reached 39.2%, up from 38.4%. Science climbed to 48.7% from 44.6%.
Those gains come with a caveat. ISBE lowered the scores needed to be deemed proficient in 2025, so only 2025 and 2026 results can be compared directly, Chalkbeat reported.
Math remains a statewide concern. The state's four-year graduation rate hit a record high of about 90%, according to the IASB, but math proficiency still trails reading by more than 16 percentage points.
Where to find local data
Downers Grove Grade School District 58 posted links to individual school report cards on its website. Families can also search results for any Illinois school or district at IllinoisReportCard.com.
District 58's Oct. 26 curriculum workshop included updates on 2025–26 student learning results, according to the district's news page. The District 58 Board of Education held a special meeting Friday, Oct. 30, at the Downers Grove Civic Center.
