Peoria Standard

Students in Tazewell County districts had a truancy rate of 8% 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 11.4%.

There were 18,493 students enrolled in Tazewell County districts in the 2021-22 school year, of which 1,485 students were absent throughout the year.

The districts located in the county had a dropout rate 3.1%, which was 1.2% higher than the year before.

Across the county, Pekin Consolidated School District 303 suffered the most truancy issues (36.1%) in the 2021-22 school year. Meanwhile, Washington School District 52 successfully recorded the lowest truancy rate in the region (1.6%).

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 Tazewell 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
Pekin Consolidated School District 303	1,814	36.1%
South Pekin School District 137	188	17.2%
Washington Community High School District 308	1,464	13.9%
East Peoria Community High School District 309	938	12.6%
Creve Coeur School District 76	481	8.8%
Rankin Community School District 98	208	7.1%
East Peoria School District 86	1,398	6.3%
Pekin Public School District 108	3,137	6.1%
Delavan Community Unit School District 703	433	5.1%
District 50 Schools	593	4.2%
Morton Community Unit School District 709	3,140	2.7%
Washington School District 52	853	1.6%