The top reported proficiency rate is 45% in English language arts. The lowest is 18% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Everett F Kerr Middle School
Everett F Kerr Middle School is a regular public middle school serving grades six through eight in Blue Island, a mature, historically rooted south Cook County city about fifteen to sixteen miles from downtown Chicago. The school sits in Cook County School District 130, which serves Alsip, Blue Island, and Crestwood. The district recently had no documented major shifts in curriculum, governance, or taxation that would substantially reshape the parent experience.
The school enrolls a mid-sized cohort, with roughly balanced grade enrollments across sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. The student body is predominantly Hispanic, with a substantial Black population and smaller shares of white and multiracial students. Demographic data on free-or-reduced-price lunch eligibility, students with IEPs, and English learners were not available.
The most recent state assessment results show widely mixed performance across grade levels and subjects. In English language arts, sixth grade sits at the low end of the school's range, while eighth grade reaches above half proficient, and seventh grade falls between. In mathematics, the picture is considerably weaker across all three grades, with sixth grade in the low range, seventh grade at the lowest point, and eighth grade somewhat higher but still well below half the students proficient. Science testing occurs only in eighth grade, where about a third of students reached proficient. The school's overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile among the districts serving Cook County, meaning performance lags most peer schools. Illinois changed proficiency cut scores statewide between school years, which complicates year-to-year comparisons; state testing data for grades three through five were not available, reflecting the fact that Kerr serves only middle grades.
The school does not report attendance or discipline data in the public record, and no graduation rate applies because the school does not serve high school. Information on program offerings, staffing, course access, and advanced pathways was not available.
Blue Island itself carries the character of a century-old working-class suburb with well-established civic anchors. The uptown commercial district along Western Avenue still hosts locally owned shops, delis, and restaurants in vintage brick storefronts, and the city maintains roughly a dozen parks through its park district, including a public pool, splash pad, skate park, and the Cal-Sag Trail, which runs through the city and connects to broader regional trail networks. Six Metra stations serve commuters to downtown Chicago, placing transit unusually rich for a small city. Housing is predominantly older, with most of the stock built before the 1940s or mid-twentieth century; the housing market sits at a value somewhat below the state benchmark and well below the national benchmark. The local economic base centers on manufacturing, health care, retail, transportation and logistics, and rail operations. The city is largely built out and mature, and recent efforts have focused on revitalization of the uptown, improvement of residential stock, and supporting the industrial base through enterprise zones and tax-increment financing.
A parent considering Kerr should engage the school directly about the factors driving current proficiency levels, the academic supports available to students who are not yet proficient, and the pathway offerings for transition to high school, since that information sits outside the public data reported here.
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