Six Evanston/Skokie District 65 elementary schools earned the state's highest rating on the 2025-26 Illinois Report Card.

Dawes, Dewey, Orrington, Walker, Washington and Willard received "exemplary" designations under a revamped rating system the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) approved in April, the Evanston RoundTable reported Oct. 28.

The results come with a caveat. The state overhauled how it rates schools, and it lowered the cutoff scores students need to be considered "proficient." Both changes affect what the new labels tell families.

What changed

Illinois previously used five summative designations: exemplary, commendable, targeted, comprehensive and intensive. The redesigned framework uses exemplary, approaching exemplary, commendable, developing and comprehensive.

The redesign changes how schools are differentiated, including those previously grouped under the broad “commendable” designation. ISBE’s March 2026 presentation reported that approximately 73% of schools received that designation using 2025 data.

Schools are now measured against fixed criteria instead of being ranked against one another. The goalposts, as the RoundTable put it, stay put.

Two other shifts matter. Absenteeism no longer drags down a school's rating. High attendance can lift a rating, but low attendance does not penalize a school. And in 2025, the state board lowered the cutoff scores for "proficient" on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR), the standardized test for students in third through eighth grade.

The numbers behind the label

Even at the six exemplary schools, significant numbers of students fall below proficiency standards.

At Dawes, 33.1% of students did not meet proficiency in English language arts and 48.1% did not reach proficiency in math, according to the RoundTable. That was despite the lower cutoff scores. The school's overall proficiency rate was 60.71%, a level that by itself qualified as "approaching exemplary" in that single category.

Dawes reached the top overall designation through strong marks in English learner progress, consistent attendance and climate survey results. Those factors function as "elevating indicators" under the new system. Strong performance on them can raise a school's designation but cannot lower it, according to the ISBE document.

Dawes was also named a Governor's Blue Ribbon School earlier in October, recognized for academic performance and progress in closing achievement gaps, the RoundTable reported.

Other District 65 ratings

Chute, Haven and Nichols middle schools received "approaching exemplary." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Literary and Fine Arts School and Lincoln, Lincolnwood and Oakton elementary schools each received "commendable."

Lincolnwood's overall proficiency rate was 66.58%, higher than Dawes's 60.71%. But the school earned a lower overall designation because of slightly lower scores in student growth and climate survey results, according to the RoundTable.

The new system was implemented on the state report card in October 2026, according to the ISBE timeline. The RoundTable noted that changes to the rating system and lower cut scores affect what readers can take away from the labels.