ETHS board hears 2025-2026 year in review report

The Evanston Township High School District 202 Board of Education on Monday approved a year in review report on the 2025-2026 school year. The report shows that overall test scores were similar to the prior year, though district officials raised concerns about a drop in reading proficiency Black ninth-graders. This is the second year that ETHS has combined all of its on achievement, student sense of belonging and discipline into one comprehensive report. In the past, each of those categories were broken down into several smaller reports. Currently, out of 3,462 students enrolled, 42.5% of students identify as white, 22.6% as Black, 21% as Hispanic/Latino, 9.3% as two or more races and 4% as Asian. While the overall rate of freshmen reading at an eighth-grade level or higher saw a slight increase from 65% to 66%, the rate of Black students meeting that standard fell from 36% to 30%, based on student performance on the state’s STAR reading assessment. Significant gaps by race and ethnicity persist, as well, with reading proficiency among white ninth-graders rising from 85% to 88%. Peter Bavis, assistant superintendent for curriculum, said he could not account for why 70% of Black students are entering ninth grade at a lower reading level, but pointed out that 44% of students overall are struggling. He said the school has “unearthed concerning things” while looking into these metrics, such as students not being required to read full novels in middle school, which “creates a situation where students don’t necessarily have the reading stamina necessary.” “We continue to see growth when kids are here,” he said. “But make no mistake: when 44% of your students are entering ninth grade with an instructional reading level that’s significantly below where we need them to be, it creates a barrier to our advanced coursework right off the bat.” Discipline The number of students with disciplinary incidents has also increased. Last school year, 829 students were involved in disciplinary incidents, up from 779 in 2024-25 and 751 in 2023-24. ETHS continues to rank in the top 20% in the state for racial disproportionality in exclusionary discipline or suspensions, meaning that students of color are suspended at a disproportionately high rate, according to the report. “One third (37%) of the male students receiving discipline incidents were African American/Black males. Similarly, 44% of the female students receiving discipline incidents are African American/Black females,” the report says. The Illinois State Board of Education uses a formula to calculate the disproportionality of suspension rates for students of color, and Superintendent Marcus Campbell said the district has “robust conversations” with the state about these ratios. Graduation rate and attendance The four-year graduation rate for the class of 2026 was 92.7%, slightly higher than the statewide average of 90.6%. For the class of 2025, it was 93.9%, which ticked up to a 95.8% five-year graduation rate. Levy said the slight drop in the four-year graduation rate mirrors a statewide pattern. Attendance has also remained about the same since 2023, Carrie Levy, director of research, evaluation and assessment, noted. It was at a 92% average daily rate across all students last year, about the same as the state average. Some student groups, though, had below average attendance rates, including those with individualized education programs (87.6%), emergent multilingual students (89.9%) and low-income students receiving free or reduced lunch (88.8%). Related Stories