Middle Schools in Southwestern CUSD 9

The Southwestern CUSD 9 district in Illinois is home to two middle schools: Southwestern Middle School and Medora Intermediate School. Based on the available data, Medora Intermediate School stands out as the higher-performing school in the district, with significantly better test scores, especially in English Language Arts (ELA), and lower chronic absenteeism rates.

Medora Intermediate School has an ELA proficiency rate of 66% in the 2023-2024 school year, compared to 37.3% at Southwestern Middle School and 41.2% statewide. In mathematics, Medora Intermediate also outperforms Southwestern Middle School and the district/state averages, though the overall math scores are lower than ELA. Additionally, Medora Intermediate has a much lower chronic absenteeism rate of 6.4% compared to 13.4% at Southwestern Middle School.

While both schools have similar rates of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch, the large gap between ELA and math proficiency rates at both schools suggests that socioeconomic factors alone do not fully explain the academic outcomes. Other school-level factors, such as teaching quality, resources, and school culture, likely play a significant role in the performance differences observed between the two middle schools in the Southwestern CUSD 9 district.