New Trier officials tout ‘exemplary’ state report card

Academic performance at New Trier Township High School remains among the highest in Illinois, according to a recent analysis from the state board of education.

New Trier officials during the School Board’s December meeting discussed results from the district’s performance on the 2025 state report card.

The Illinois State Board of Education in late October of 2025 issued its progress reports for every school district in the state, detailing how districts across the area are performing across a set of educational goals. More specifically, the 2025 report offers districts a precise look at student performance from the 2024-’25 school year, officials said.

One of the key elements in the report is a measurement called the annual summative designation. According to a memo from Dr. Chimille Tillery, the district’s assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, the state is required to assign each district a descriptor of “how well it is meeting the needs of its students.”

The ISBE’s summative designation is based on what officials described as “indicators” of academic performance, including proficiency rates in English language arts, math, and science; graduation rate; ninth-graders on track; and chronic absenteeism.

New Trier, at both its Northfield and Winnetka campuses, earned an “exemplary” designation, the highest possible marking from the state school board. Schools that achieve the exemplary rating are in the top 10% of student academic performance in the state, per Tillery.

“For us, this is evidence that we are serving the needs of our students, meeting the community’s expectations and achieving at a high level,” Tillery told the board, adding that the district can also use data from the report card to look at “areas of improvement.”

New Trier has consistently ranked well in the summative designation as the district has earned the highest classification in every year except 2023 since the designation was first issued on state report cards in 2018.

A factor in New Trier’s “commendable” ranking in 2023 was the district’s chronic absenteeism rate, which at that point reached 31%. This year, the district’s rate in that category came in at 13%.

Per Illinois law, “chronic absentee” refers to a student who misses 10% of school days within an academic year — with or without a valid excuse.

District officials commended “the collaborative approach” led by New Trier’s Graduating Class Teams to help improve New Trier’s chronic absenteeism rate.

Board President Jean Hahn said that New Trier’s absenteeism rate was at its height following the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. She noted that it was something “everyone was dealing with.” Hahn said the district has done a “remarkable job bringing that number down.”

New Trier’s absenteeism rate stood at just 10.8% in 2018, officials said during the meeting.

Strong achievement on the ACT and “perennially high graduation rates” were also significant factors in New Trier earning the highest level of designation.

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