Claremont Academy Elem School, Chicago IL

Original Research by School Decision on Claremont Academy Elem School

Claremont Academy Elem School is a public elementary school on the South Side of Chicago serving grades from pre-K through eighth grade. The enrollment is small, around three hundred students spread across about that many grade levels, with a student body that is predominantly Black with a substantial share of Hispanic students and very few students from other racial and ethnic backgrounds.

The school's 2024-25 state assessment results show overall proficiency that falls in the bottom quartile among Cook County districts. Across mathematics, just under a third of third graders scored at the proficient level or above, but proficiency drops sharply as grades climb. By fourth grade, fewer than one in ten students met the math benchmark; it stays very low through fifth and sixth grade, dips further in seventh, and in eighth grade bottoms out at single digits. English language arts shows a similar pattern overall: third grade is around one in three proficient, fourth grade drops to low percentages, and results climb somewhat by sixth grade then decline again by seventh and eighth. Science proficiency for fifth graders is low, and by eighth grade, the percentage of students meeting standards is in the single digits. Grade seven has a participation rate a few percentage points below the others, worth watching, though eighth-grade participation in math and ELA is very strong.

Illinois changed its testing cut scores this year, so year-to-year trends within this school are not directly comparable to prior years. Without multi-year data or comparative growth metrics, it is not possible to say whether proficiency is stable, rising, or falling. A parent may want to ask the school directly whether recent years have shown improvement and what the school attributes current results to.

The school's name in district records is Claremont STEM Magnet Elementary School, which might suggest a science and mathematics focus, but the assessment data does not reveal that. A parent may want to look into this further with the school: what the STEM and magnet designations mean in practice, how they shape instruction, and what specific strengths or pathways they create.

The school sits in Chicago, a large, dense city with extensive public transit and a strong civic infrastructure. The local housing market shows modest appreciation and moderate supply. Families considering Claremont Academy are entering a district that has undergone significant change. Chicago Public Schools is transitioning to a fully elected school board by November 2026, shifting governance from a mayor-appointed model, and the district adopted a strategic plan emphasizing neighborhood schools and moving away from the school-choice model that dominated for decades. The district also launched new school accountability dashboards in late 2024 that move beyond test scores to broader measures of school experience and resources. These shifts may be worth understanding as part of your calculus about the school and the district's direction. State assessment data was provided; discipline, staffing, attendance, and chronic absenteeism data were not available, so the full picture of school climate and student support is incomplete from this record alone.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 329%

School 29% · District 38% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Grade 410%

School 10% · District 29% · ▼ 19 pts below district

▼ 26 pts below state median · ▼ 18 pts below county median

Grade 511%

School 11% · District 24% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Grade 625%

School 25% · District 23% · ▲ 2 pts above district

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

Grade 719%

School 19% · District 27% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Grade 86%

School 6% · District 23% · ▼ 17 pts below district

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

English language arts

Grade 333%

School 33% · District 36% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 413%

School 13% · District 39% · ▼ 25 pts below district

▼ 35 pts below state median · ▼ 27 pts below county median

Grade 527%

School 27% · District 43% · ▼ 16 pts below district

▼ 25 pts below state median · ▼ 19 pts below county median

Grade 638%

School 38% · District 45% · ▼ 7 pts below district

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

Grade 723%

School 23% · District 46% · ▼ 23 pts below district

▼ 28 pts below state median · ▼ 21 pts below county median

Grade 827%

School 27% · District 48% · ▼ 21 pts below district

▼ 27 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

Science

Grade 519%

School 19% · District 29% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▼ 18 pts below state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

Grade 89%

School 9% · District 31% · ▼ 23 pts below district

▼ 31 pts below state median · ▼ 18 pts below 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.