Plainfield High School
Plainfield · IL · Plainfield SD 202 · Public
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Most similar nearby schools
Plainfield Academy → Plainfield South High School → Plainfield North High School → Plainfield East High School → Joliet Catholic Academy → Wilco Area Career Center → Gail McKinzie High School → Joliet West High School →📋 At a glance
- 📚 23 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- 🔢 14 calculus classes · 20 physics · 25 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 90th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Top 2.0% by test-taker volume
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Plainfield High School compares for families
Standout academic depth by national standards.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 10% nationally with 23 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyIL sits right at the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math — local school quality will set your kid apart.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Plainfield Academy, Plainfield South High School, Plainfield North High School and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
90th percentile nationally
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-21Top 2.0% by test-taker volume
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.
👩🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC
Teacher experience & reliability
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
Mixed-income school
Below Title I eligibility threshold (FRPL < 35%)
25-34% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. Below the federal Title I threshold but a meaningful share of the population is income-eligible for free lunch.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: A low chronic-absence rate is the cleanest school-level signal of strong family connection, classroom culture, and student engagement — all upstream drivers of enrollment stability. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.
Counselor capacity
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020-2021. Counselor ratio = the school's most recent total enrollment ÷ counselor FTE. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a 250:1 maximum; the US national median across schools with on-staff counselors is roughly 430:1.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of -4.8%/year, projecting from 2024's 1,800 students:
≈ 394 fewer students by 2029 — a real revenue/relevance risk worth getting ahead of.
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue at risk
At $18,255 per student in district revenue, the 394 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $7,192,470/year in funding at risk.
District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.
Nearby high schools — the local competition
The closest high schools families here also consider, and where their enrollment is heading.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plainfield Academy Plainfield |
Public | 0.5 | — | — |
| Plainfield South High School Plainfield |
Public | 4.4 | 2,323 | -4.6% |
| Plainfield North High School Plainfield |
Public | 4.4 | 2,399 | -1.6% |
| Plainfield East High School Plainfield |
Public | 4.7 | 1,825 | -9.7% |
| Joliet Catholic Academy Joliet |
Private | 5.8 | 597 | -11.7% |
| Wilco Area Career Center Romeoville |
Public | 5.9 | — | — |
| Gail McKinzie High School Naperville |
Public | 6.5 | — | — |
| Joliet West High School Joliet |
Public | 6.6 | 3,451 | -2.8% |