The top reported proficiency rate is 49% in Math. The lowest is 40% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Big Timber Elementary School
Big Timber Elementary serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Hampshire, Illinois, a fast-growing exurban village about an hour northwest of Chicago in Kane County. The school sits on the edge of rapidly expanding residential subdivisions, serving a student body of about four hundred students drawn from the newer Prairie Ridge and similar master-planned communities that have transformed Hampshire from a quiet farming region into a logistics and residential hub straddling Interstate 90.
The school's academic profile shows clear strengths in early elementary mathematics but a sharp decline in proficiency as students move into upper grades. Third grade math proficiency stands solidly above the midpoint, whereas fourth and fifth grade math proficiency drops substantially. English language arts follows a similar arc, with third grade performance moderate and fourth and fifth grades falling noticeably. Fifth grade science proficiency sits below the midpoint. Across tested subjects and grades, the school's overall proficiency index is below the midpoint relative to other districts in Kane County. No state testing data was available for grades six through eight, which reflects the school's actual grade band: it serves only through fifth grade. Parents evaluating Big Timber should look closely at the mathematics and literacy instruction in grades four and five, as the decline in proficiency from grade three suggests a shift in curriculum rigor or delivery that warrants conversation with the school's leadership.
Hampshire's student body is racially and ethnically diverse. White students comprise about half the enrollment, while Hispanic students make up roughly a third, Asian students a small portion, and Black and multiracial students smaller shares still. The data does not include free-or-reduced-price lunch counts or English learner identification rates, so a parent cannot assess the economic disadvantage or language-learning composition from this information alone. The school does not carry Title I designation, but that alone does not tell you about the socioeconomic makeup of the families served.
The broader context matters for understanding what Big Timber sits within. District 300, the parent district, is experiencing substantial enrollment pressure. High school capacity boundaries were redrawn in late 2025 to manage projected growth exceeding a thousand students over the coming decade, and the district completed a long-term Master Facility Plan in 2024 identifying potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in capital needs. A referendum on facilities funding is being considered for the November 2026 ballot. For families in the Big Timber area, these district-level dynamics mean that growth is real, capacity concerns are active, and facility investments or tax implications may be part of the near-term community conversation.
Hampshire itself is in a phase of rapid development. New subdivisions like Prairie Ridge are bringing builders and townhome communities, and the village markets itself as an industrial and logistics hub along I-90. The housing market in the zip code shows median home values and rental rates in the mid-range for the region. A parent buying near Big Timber is entering a community defined by recent and ongoing residential expansion, with all the infrastructure and school-capacity pressures that entails.
See more original research from School Decision →