Peoria Standard

Students in Peoria County districts had a truancy rate of 24.2% in the 2021-22 school year, according to the Illinois State Board of Education. This was a decrease from the previous school year's rate of 28.1%.

There were 27,110 students enrolled in Peoria County districts in the 2021-22 school year, of which 6,548 students were absent throughout the year.

The districts located in the county had a dropout rate 4.6%, which was 0.1% higher than the year before.

Across the county, Peoria School District 150 suffered the most truancy issues (47.8%) in the 2021-22 school year. Meanwhile, Dunlap Community Unit School District 323 successfully recorded the lowest truancy rate in the region (1.2%).

Students are generally considered chronically truant if they miss 5% or more of the total number of school days in a year without acceptable excuses.

The main offices of all districts mentioned in the story are located in cities associated with Peoria County.

In 2022, Illinois had 1,925,415 students enrolled in a total of 3,977 schools. There were 130,467 teachers in the public schools, or roughly one teacher for every 15 students, compared to the national average of 1:16.

K-12 enrollment has been declining in Illinois for many years, reflecting demographic changes. Combined public and private K-12 enrollment dropped 3% between the 2019–2020 and 2020–2021 school years (60,900 students), far more than the typical 0.5% to 1.5% annual enrollment declines in Illinois over the last five years.

District	No. of students enrolled	Chronic truancy rates
Peoria School District 150	12,667	47.8%
Pleasant Hill School District 69	186	33.1%
Pleasant Valley School District 62	442	25.7%
Limestone Community High School District 310	894	22.4%
Norwood Elementary School District 63	389	17%
Peoria Heights Community Unit School District 325	716	11.1%
Illinois Valley Central Unit School District 321	2,035	9.2%
Farmington Central Community Unit School District 265	1,242	8.1%
Princeville Community Unit School District 326	674	4%
Illini Bluffs Community Unit School District 327	846	3.8%
Dunlap Community Unit School District 323	4,614	1.2%