Original Research by School Decision on Burr Oak Academy
Burr Oak Academy is a public elementary school in Calumet Park serving prekindergarten through second grade, with a small enrollment distributed across those early grades and a few students in third through fifth grade. The school is part of Calumet Public SD 132.
The student body is predominantly Black, with a substantial Hispanic population and very small shares of other racial and ethnic groups. The school enrolls a diverse early-childhood population typical of an urban inner-ring suburb, though free-or-reduced-price lunch counts and data on English learners and students with disabilities are not publicly available, limiting a fuller picture of economic and academic support needs.
State assessment data for this school were not available. Because the school serves primarily grades that are not state-tested in Illinois (prekindergarten through second grade), third-grade results are the earliest tested grades, and the data were suppressed for privacy, likely reflecting a very small tested cohort. Without proficiency data, it is not possible to characterize the school's performance against state benchmarks or peer schools in the district and county.
Calumet Park itself is a small, densely built inner-ring suburb south of Chicago with a population that declined slowly over recent years. The area is almost entirely residential, with commercial activity concentrated along Obama Drive (West 127th Street) and Vermont Street. Housing values are well below the state and national median, and rental costs are modest. The village has limited employment within its boundaries; most workers commute to jobs elsewhere, with mean travel time notably above the regional average. The village is pursuing redevelopment, including a mixed-use apartment complex on a former mobile-home-park site and a corridor plan centered on transit-oriented development near the Ashland/Calumet Park Metra station.
The district is undertaking a gymnasium expansion at Calumet Middle School and operates under a strategic plan adopted in recent years. Beyond those items, limited detail on district-level curriculum priorities or recent changes is publicly available.
For families considering Burr Oak Academy, the main limitation is the absence of performance data. A parent should reach out to the school directly to understand how it approaches early literacy and numeracy, what specialized support is available for students who need it, class sizes and staffing, and how the school connects families to resources. The school's location in Calumet Park places it in an affordable, car-dependent residential neighborhood with modest commercial amenities, so commuting considerations and access to out-of-school services and activities elsewhere will shape the fit.
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