On Oct. 30, the Illinois State Board of Education released the 2023 Illinois Report Card, a comprehensive report on the performance of high schools across the state. Schools are given one of five designations; this year, ETHS received the Commendable School designation, the second highest label. To get into the top category, the school would have to be performing in the top 10 percent of schools statewide, something that was not achieved in 2023.

The report provided many data points concerning student achievement, student body makeup and school environment, to name a few. While most of the data stayed similar to that of last year’s report, ETHS administrators are looking to improve on a few specific areas.

“When we’re really talking about improving our numbers, [the main focus] is increasing the four-year graduation rate,” said Superintendent Dr. Marcus Campbell. “Our dropout rate is very low, but there’s a four-year, five-year, six-year and even a seven-year graduation rate, so what we’ll need to do is move more kids to graduate in four years.”

ETHS has a dropout rate of 1.4 percent, compared with the 2.9 percent statewide average. 92.8 percent of ETHS students graduate in four years, 95.5 and 96 percent are the five and six-year graduation rates, respectively. Those numbers are significantly above the statewide graduation rate, that is 87.6, 89.1 and 89.3 percent for four, five and six years respectively.

To graduate at ETHS, a student must earn 48 total credits, with certain additional credit requirements in different subject areas. Many students, while eventually earning all the necessary credits to graduate, are taking more than the traditional four-year time period. This can create additional stress on teachers and administrators and creates the need for programs encouraging students to get the necessary course credits.

“I’m looking for ways and programs to support kids to be able to get the skills and content knowledge that they need, but also not be credit deficient, and having integrity around that,” said Campbell.

Although there is some improvement to be had in the four-year graduation rate at ETHS, Campbell highlighted the recent increase in SAT and AP scores among students, representing a bounceback from the pandemic lows.

2023 SAT scores among ETHS students showed an average score of 1064.6, compared to the 2022 average score of 1039.8. ETHS students also consistently scored higher than the statewide average, which was 960.9 in 2023.

More data from the Illinois Report Card can be found here.