Coal City H.S. makes the mark

COAL CITY -- Coal City High School is the class of Grundy County.

The high school was the only one in the county to make adequate yearly progress under the No Child Left Behind program.

It was the fourth consecutive year the high school has made the mark, with the bar getting raised each time.

"It's challenging, very challenging," Superintendent Kent Bugg said of rising to the government-mandated challenge year after year.

Before its string of successes, Coal City failed twice in a row to meet the demands of No Child Left Behind. This prompted Bugg to institute a new strategy to get the school going in a new direction.

"We did a lot of things in order to improve," he said.

And the high school's grades shot up, as did the grades of the entire district -- in the past year, Coal City Community Unit District finished in 84th place out of 650 school districts across the state, Bugg said.

"We're really proud of that," he said.

"In order to accomplish that, you need really good teachers, which we have" the superintendent said. "And in order to accomplish that, you need an exceptional community, which we have."

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