Yes, Elmhurst D-205 Aware Of School Rankings: Official

ELMHURST, IL – A top official in Elmhurst School District 205 says the district pays attention to outside school rankings that influence parents.

At last week's school board meeting, Associate Superintendent Scott Grens referred to services such as U.S. News & World Report and Great Schools as "unconventional ranking providers."

In 2018, U.S. News ranked Elmhurst's York High School as the 17th best high school statewide and 703rd nationally.

In 2021, York fell to 33rd in Illinois and rose to 671st across the country.

Grens told the board that officials examine the statistics that influence the rankings of such services.

Board member Jim Collins said he was glad the district did. He said many people like to "condense everything into one number."

"They are young families trying to decide what town they want to move to and what neighborhood they want to move to in that town. And they're looking at one number," Collins said. "Thank you for acknowledging that those are the real influences in our society today."

He urged the district to find out what the ranking services measure to the "greatest extent possible."

Board President Kara Caforio echoed Collins' point. She also said the ranking services take into account a school's progress in improving the scores of student subgroups.

That's why the district takes part in programs such as Equal Opportunity Schools, Caforio said.

"If you want high scores on some of those rankings Mr. Collins was referring to, you have to do the work to look at what all the needs of students are," she said.