The top reported proficiency rate is 37% in English language arts. The lowest is 22% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Albany Park Multicultural Elem
Albany Park Multicultural Elementary serves grades seven and eight on Chicago's North Side, a middle school of modest size situated in a neighborhood with a distinct demographic character. The school enrolls a student body that is predominantly Hispanic, with smaller shares of Asian, white, and other backgrounds. Free-or-reduced-price-lunch data and English learner enrollment figures were not available in the provided data.
The school's academic standing sits below the midpoint when compared with other schools in Cook County. On state testing in 2024-25, eighth-grade proficiency in English language arts reached roughly two-fifths of students, a level higher than the school's eighth-grade math result of roughly one in seven students. In seventh grade, the pattern reverses: English language arts proficiency was roughly one-third of students, while math proficiency was close to that same mark. Across both grades and subjects, the median proficiency rate—combining these results—falls in the bottom quartile among schools in Cook County. The school shows strong test participation rates, near complete across both grades and subjects, which indicates students are taking the assessments. Science testing (grade 8 only) showed proficiency near one-third of students. Grade 3 through 6 results were not reported, likely because the school serves only grades 7 and 8.
Data on graduation rate, chronic absenteeism, and discipline were not provided. Similarly, teacher staffing, course offerings, programs, and school environment details were absent from the available information, so a fuller picture of what the school's instructional environment and daily experience are like cannot be drawn here.
The school sits within Chicago Public Schools District 299, which has undergone substantial governance and policy changes. The district moved to a hybrid elected and appointed school board in late 2024 and will transition to a fully elected 21-member board in 2026, giving families direct voting power over district leadership. At the same time, CPS adopted a strategic plan called Together We Rise that emphasizes strengthening neighborhood schools rather than school-choice models, a significant directional shift for a district long known for selective enrollment, magnet, and charter options. In late 2024, the district also replaced its traditional numeric school ratings with new holistic dashboards designed to surface school-experience and resource metrics alongside academic data. The district has rolled out Skyline, a comprehensive PreK-12 curriculum covering six content areas, giving all district schools access to unified materials.
Chicago itself is a large, dense city with a walkable geography, a major downtown and lakefront, and extensive public transit via the CTA, Metra, and Pace systems. The metro has resumed population growth after years of decline, and housing approvals have picked up, though inventory remains relatively tight. In the Albany Park neighborhood zip code, housing values have grown at a modest pace year-over-year, and rental costs are rising somewhat faster. The immediate market for rental apartments shows higher turnover costs, while purchase prices sit below the state and national benchmarks, making the area somewhat more affordable than many parts of the metro region on a purely mortgage basis, though renters face rent-to-income ratios that consume a meaningful share of household income.
A parent may want to reach out to the school directly to understand its specific instructional model, program offerings, and support structures for middle-grade students, as those details do not appear in the state data available here.
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