In a school year which has seen the River Forest school board poring over reams of figures and facts in preparation for a possible tax hike referendum, the arrival of the 2005 Illinois State School Report card carries special weight. The three District 90 schools, which ranked number one in Illinois last school year, continued to present impressive, if slightly lower numbers.

There was a slight decline in the percentage of district students meeting and exceeding state standards. The 90.3 percent figure was down 2.3 from the 92.6 figure in the 2003-04 school year.

Over the 2004-05 school year, Dist. 90 had 1,367 students enrolled—97 percent of them white. There were no chronic truancies, 1.1 percent low income, and 0.7 percent with limited English proficiency. Dist. 90 continued to have an effectively a zero truancy rate, and an extremely high attendance rate—96.3 percent last year. Only 1.1 percent of its students were characterized as low income.

Besides being an affluent district, two distinct strengths noted in the report card was a pupil-to-teacher ratio of 16.4, and a 100 percent reported parent contact with the schools rate during the year.