Sunset Ridge Elementary School in Northfield placed 10th among 846 ranked middle schools in Illinois, according to the 2027 U.S. News & World Report rankings released Tuesday, Oct. 20.
The 274-student school on Sunset Ridge Road serves grades 4 through 8, which qualifies it for the middle school list even though "elementary" is in its name.
As we reported Oct. 20, Wilmette's Romona Elementary placed No. 23 on the separate U.S. News elementary school rankings. The middle school list is a distinct ranking with its own methodology.
Chicago schools claimed the first six spots on the middle school list, Patch reported. Young Magnet High School topped the state. Bradford Junior High School in Bradford ranked seventh, and Maple School in Northbrook came in eighth.
According to the school's U.S. News profile, 88% of Sunset Ridge students scored at or above proficiency in reading and 77% in math. Statewide, those figures are 45% and 36%. The school ranked sixth in Illinois for middle school reading proficiency and 12th for math. Both categories earned a rating of "well above expectations."
It has an 8:1 student-teacher ratio with 34 full-time teachers, all certified.
Sunset Ridge School District 29 is under new leadership. Superintendent Dr. Ed Stange, who led the district for 13 years, retired at the end of the 2025–26 school year. Dr. James Eichmiller replaced him after the board approved his appointment in December 2025, The Record reported.
Eichmiller came from Downers Grove Grade School District 58, where he served as assistant superintendent for technology and learning. District 29 Board President Holt Zeidler said in a press release that Eichmiller "demonstrated that he is a strategic thinker with a deep and broad knowledge base related to education."
The district also has a $23.5 million facilities project underway at Middlefork School, its kindergarten-through-third-grade campus. Voters approved the bond referendum by a 2-to-1 margin earlier in 2026, according to The Record.
U.S. News researchers based the 2027 rankings on data collected from state education agencies by RTI International and from the U.S. Department of Education. Direct state agency data is a new addition to the methodology. The rankings evaluated math and reading achievement across proficiency levels while accounting for student background. Student-teacher ratios broke ties.
The ranking data draws from the 2023–24 school year for state assessments and the 2025 Common Core of Data, according to the U.S. News profile. The full list of 846 ranked Illinois middle schools is available on the U.S. News website.
