SYCAMORE – West Elementary School in Sycamore was recognized by the Illinois State Board of Education as a Spotlight School. There were 105 Spotlight Schools honored in Illinois this year.

Criteria for selecting Spotlight Schools are rigorous. All schools must be making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), which requires at least 85 percent of students to pass the state achievement tests in both reading and mathematics. At least half of the students in each Spotlight School are from low-income families.

As the AYP requirements continued to rise, the number of schools achieving this award leveled off in 2008 and has declined in succeeding years.