Best School Districts: Where Does Bolingbrook Rank?

For most people, a lot of factors come into play when choosing where to live -- and if you're a parent or planning to become a parent, the quality of local schools can be a deciding factor.

With that in mind, Niche.com, a website dedicated to analyzing data to provide information on the best neighborhoods and schools, releases a list each year of the best school districts in the country and state. The site says it "ranks over 8,000 public school districts based on statistics and millions of opinions from students and parents."

The site’s 2017 best schools lists just came out this week, and Valley View Community Consolidated School District 365-U came in at No. 112 on the list, with an overall grade of B.

At No. 1 was New Trier Township High School District No. 203 in Winnetka.

Valley View schools received mostly positive reviews from parents and students.

"Personally, as a student of Valley View I feel included in my classrooms and I have the desire to learn everyday," one student said. "The teachers do a great job of getting students engaged in class, activities, and pay attention to the needs of the student. However, I would like to see more interest in the art programs."

But another accused the district of "playing favorites," saying, "A large amount of funding went to Bolingbrook High School, while Romeoville High School barely could afford to cover up the asbestos on the stairs in the prop shop. I would love to see a change in making funding equal and sprucing up a lot of the old Romeoville High School's issues."

Reviewers gave Valley View schools one "excellent" rating, six "very good" ratings, one "average" rating and one "poor" rating.

Niche.com uses factors including state test scores, college readiness, graduation rates, SAT/ACT scores, teacher quality, public school district ratings and more to reach its ratings and assign "grades" to school districts.

The district got the following grades for an overall B:

• Academics: B
• Teachers: C+
• Clubs & Activities: B+
• Diversity: A+
• College Readiness: B
• Health & Safety: B+

The full list of 100 best school districts in the state can be found on here. Find the top 25 here.

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