Six District 15 schools have made the 2012 Illinois Honor Roll, each of them earning another Illinois Academic Excellence Award to add to their growing collections.

The Illinois Honor Roll is a joint project of the Illinois State Board of Education and Northern Illinois University. The Honor Roll celebrates the accomplishments of exemplary Illinois public schools by recognizing schools in three categories:

• Illinois Spotlight Schools are high-poverty schools where high academic performance is closing the “achievement gap.”
• Illinois Academic Improvement Awards are given to schools that have made substantial gains in performance over the last three years.
• Illinois Academic Excellence Awards are given to schools that have sustained very high academic performance levels on state assessments over at least three years.

This year, 454 schools across the state earned Illinois Academic Excellence Awards this year, and only eight other districts, including all of Chicago Public Schools, earned more awards than District 15. Each of District 15’s recipients has earned the honor in the past. In fact, each school is now on its own award-winning streak ranging anywhere from three to nine years in length. Those schools are:

• Hunting Ridge School (2005-2012)
• Marion Jordan School (2004-2012)
• Pleasant Hill School (2004-2012)
• Plum Grove Junior High (2007-2012)
• Frank C. Whiteley School (2004 and 2008-2012)
• Willow Bend School (2010-2012)

To earn these awards, these schools had to meet the following criteria:

• At least 90 percent of students met or exceeded state standards in both reading and mathematics for at least three consecutive years.
• All schools must have made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for the past two years, as required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

-Story Submitted by Community Consolidated School District 15