Mckinley Elem School, Bellwood IL

Original Research by School Decision on Mckinley Elem School

McKinley Elem School serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Bellwood, a small residential suburb roughly a dozen miles west of downtown Chicago. The school sits on the west side of Cook County in a community where the housing stock runs to Chicago-style bungalows and brick ranches on tree-lined blocks, with an industrial corridor along the village's eastern edge. The enrollment is small, with roughly equivalent cohorts across the grade band.

The school's student body is majority Black, with a substantial Hispanic minority and a small population identifying as two or more races. Race-ethnicity and free-or-reduced-price-lunch data were the most recent available; income-based lunch eligibility rates and counts of students with individualized education plans or English learner status were not reported.

State test results from the most recent year show a consistent pattern of low proficiency. In math, third-graders achieved proficiency at a rate roughly in the low-to-mid range, but proficiency dropped sharply in fourth and fifth grades, falling to single digits. In English language arts, proficiency sat in the mid-range for third grade, stayed low for fourth, and recovered somewhat by fifth. A science assessment in fifth grade showed proficiency at around one in ten students. The school's overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile relative to districts in Cook County.

The school participates regularly in state testing, with participation rates near or above 95 percent in both math and language arts. The assessment itself underwent cut-score changes in the state testing system, which can complicate year-to-year comparisons; trend data that accounts for these changes was not available. A parent may want to look into the school's approach to math instruction and underlying achievement patterns in grades four and five, where the steep drop suggests either a significant instructional shift or concentrations of students needing different support.

Bellwood SD 88, the parent district, is not currently undergoing documented major changes. The village itself is in the early stages of economic revitalization, with a mixed-use workforce housing project called the Bellwood Gateway having broken ground in mid-2024 along St. Charles Road. The project is intended to create a downtown anchor in a community that historically lacked one. The Bellwood Metra station on the Union Pacific West Line provides regional transit, with a ride of roughly 30 minutes to downtown Chicago.

Housing values in the Bellwood area are below the state median and have remained relatively stable. Rental availability sits in the moderate range for the county. The local economy centers on health care, administrative and support services, manufacturing, and transportation and logistics, reflecting the industrial heritage of the western suburbs.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 343%

School 43% · District 36% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 48%

School 8% · District 14% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 28 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

Grade 58%

School 8% · District 15% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 22 pts below state median · ▼ 14 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 338%

School 38% · District 37%

▼ 6 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 425%

School 25% · District 22% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▼ 23 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

Grade 539%

School 39% · District 37% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Science

Grade 511%

School 11% · District 16% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 26 pts below state median · ▼ 16 pts below county median

This schoolBellwood SD 88, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.