Drummond Elem School, Chicago IL

Original Research by School Decision on Drummond Elem School

Drummond Elementary School is a neighborhood school serving early childhood through eighth grade in Chicago's Bucktown area, on West Cortland Street. The enrollment is small, concentrated in the early years, with a substantial drop as students advance to middle grades; the school draws from a diverse student body that is roughly evenly split between white students and those of other backgrounds, with meaningful populations of Hispanic, multiracial, and Asian students.

The academic picture shows proficiency that sits above the midpoint among Cook County districts overall, though with visible grade-level variation and subject differences. In English language arts, students in grade three and five perform in the upper half, with grade three approaching the mark where close to half the class reaches proficiency. Performance softens in grades four and seven, where fewer than half meet the standard. In math, third grade shows the strongest results, with proficiency near the mark where roughly half the class succeeds. Grades four, five, and six all run between four and ten percentage points below that line, before performance recovers somewhat in grades seven and eight. Science testing, available only in grades five and eight, shows a split: grade five proficiency is near half, while grade eight jumps sharply higher, where three-quarters of students reach proficiency. Test participation is nearly universal across all grades and subjects, indicating minimal opt-out. It is worth noting that Illinois changed its proficiency cut scores on these assessments in the most recent administration, so direct year-to-year comparisons to prior performance are not available from the data provided.

The school sits in a Chicago neighborhood with a stable and increasingly expensive housing market. Home values in the 60622 zip code are in the mid-range for Cook County, and rents have risen notably year over year, putting housing affordability at a moderate stretch relative to national norms. This is characteristic of Chicago's North Side neighborhoods that have seen steady gentrification and in-migration over the past decade.

Chicago Public Schools itself is undergoing structural change. The district is shifting from a mayoral-appointed board toward a fully elected one, with all 21 seats to be elected in November 2026. More significantly for classroom practice, the district adopted a five-year strategic plan centered on strengthening neighborhood schools, moving away from the school-choice architecture that has long defined CPS. The district also launched a universal PreK-12 curriculum called Skyline across all content areas, available at no school-level cost, which standardizes instruction across the district. Additionally, the district replaced its former numeric school ratings with holistic accountability dashboards that launched in December 2024, so the older comparison metrics have changed.

No free-and-reduced-price-lunch data, special education enrollment, English learner counts, chronic absenteeism figures, or discipline statistics were available, so a reader cannot assess the share of economically disadvantaged students or compare support-service utilization to peers from the information on hand. A parent may want to look into these details with the school directly to understand who the population is and what targeted supports are in place. Similarly, course offerings, staffing levels, and attendance data beyond the state testing participation were not provided.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 356%

School 56% · District 38% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 17 pts above county median

Grade 438%

School 38% · District 29% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 1 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 540%

School 40% · District 24% · ▲ 16 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Grade 636%

School 36% · District 23% · ▲ 13 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Grade 752%

School 52% · District 27% · ▲ 25 pts above district

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 31 pts above county median

Grade 848%

School 48% · District 23% · ▲ 25 pts above district

▲ 25 pts above state median · ▲ 31 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 359%

School 59% · District 36% · ▲ 23 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 22 pts above county median

Grade 441%

School 41% · District 39% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Grade 560%

School 60% · District 43% · ▲ 17 pts above district

▲ 8 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 657%

School 57% · District 45% · ▲ 12 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 740%

School 40% · District 46% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Grade 856%

School 56% · District 48% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 3 pts above state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

Science

Grade 550%

School 50% · District 29% · ▲ 21 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 23 pts above county median

Grade 872%

School 72% · District 31% · ▲ 41 pts above district

▲ 32 pts above state median · ▲ 45 pts above county median

This schoolChicago Public Schools Dist 299, 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.