While a slight dip in Freshmen On Track in the 2025-26 school year isn’t a major cause for concern for Riverside-Brookfield High School District 208, it is worth a closer look, according to Principal Dr. Hector Freytas.
According to School/District Performance Data from the 2026-26 School Year, Freshmen On Track stood at 95.37%, slightly down from 97.22% in the 2024-25 school year.
In student number terms, as of August 2026, the class of 2029 had 389 students on track to graduate and 20 not on track. Of those latter students, 14 are Hispanic, six are white, nine are female and 11 are male and seven have Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs.
“Above 95 percent is still strong. Even with the dip, the majority of our kids are on track,” Freytas said. “It’s not a cause for alarm, but it’s worth a closer look. We’re going to see who the students are and what they have in common and our goal is to swing back the other way.”
Action steps include multiple tasks, like division heads working with teachers to help monitor off-track students, and school counselors’ use of Panorama to monitor early warning data.
According to Beth Augustine, assistant principal for student services, Panorama is educational software with a student success platform that pulls attendance, grades, behavior and survey results into one dashboard so staff can see which students need support.
Another key data point was a 4-Year Cohort Graduation Rate that jumped slightly to 95% in 2025-26 from 94.8% in 2024-25. Twenty-two students were considered non-graduates in 2025-26, 12 of whom were special education students. Nine of those students ultimately met graduation requirements but returned for transition services. Ten of the 22 students either dropped out or pursued a GED.
Freytas said including students in transition, that 95% increases to over 97%. Students who graduate in the first half of summer school still count in the four-year graduation rate.
“The majority of students are graduating, but I recognize that every student that doesn’t graduate on time, it’s a cause for concern,” Freytas said. “We have to reflect on what to do. We meet with students, parents, social workers.
“Sometimes, rarely, it’s a struggle to get a student to graduate and we do everything we can. A student that doesn’t graduate matters.”
The class of 2026 was the first class to take the ACT standardized test as part of Illinois’ official transition from the SAT. That graduating class did not take PreACT tests as freshmen or sophomores, but did take the ACT in spring 2025, with some students deciding to take the ACT again in spring 2026 to improve their score.
Growth analysis statistics show improvement from spring 2025 to 2026 in each of the five test categories – composition, math, English, reading and science. For example, students averaged 21.3 in composition in spring 2025 and increased to 21.4 in spring 2026. In math, students rose from 21.4 to 21.6; English increased from 20.5 to 20.7.
“Our initial ACT scores are a baseline, so our ultimate goal is to see where our students fall and then determine how we can support more students toward the college and career readiness benchmark,” said Kylie Lindquist, assistant principal for curriculum and instruction. “Our baseline scores are largely congruent with the percent of our students who were meeting benchmarks on the SAT as well.
“We definitely have room to grow because we want our students to score as high as they can and have options when they leave RB,” she said. “Spending time to realign curriculum and adjust interventions to meet the needs of our students has been a big part of our plan to support student growth in all areas over the last couple of school years.”
Additionally, Dave Mannon, assistant principal for student affairs, noted modest improvement in number of recorded mental health days in 2025-26.
“Our attendance and deans’ offices restructured their weekly data reviews, so we were able to identify attendance patterns earlier and use that information in our small-team meetings with Student Services to plan for students who are missing school or struggling emotionally,” Mannon said.
“The state created mental health days for good reason, and our goal isn’t to drive that number to zero,” Mannon said. “It’s to make sure a student who’s struggling gets connected with support here at school instead of staying home.”
The district goal for student engagement is 75%, and in 2025-26 that number sat at 77%, well up from 65% in the 2021-22 school year, though down a percentage point from 2024-25.
“Our engagement rate has grown steadily, and most of that growth has come from giving students more ways to get involved,” Mannon said. “That growth doesn’t happen in a silo. It comes from a positive building culture and from sponsors who put in countless hours to give students a wealth of experiences.
“I tell our students all the time that RB is a special place, and if they’re willing to give something new a chance, they may find a passion and build lasting friendships.”