The top reported proficiency rate is 35% in English language arts. The lowest is 19% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Cicero East Elem School
Cicero East Elem School serves grades four through six in a densely built, heavily Hispanic working-class town just west of Chicago. The school's enrollment sits at roughly 400 students, with enrollment fairly balanced across the three grade levels. The student body is predominantly Hispanic, reflecting the town's demographics; the school has very small numbers of students from other racial and ethnic backgrounds. Free-or-reduced-price lunch eligibility data was not available, and English learner enrollment figures were similarly not reported, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about these characteristics.
The school's testing data from the 2024-25 school year shows modest math and English language arts proficiency across all three grades. In math, fourth-grade proficiency sits at a low level, fifth-grade is lower still, and sixth-grade performance is similarly weak. In English language arts, the results follow a similar pattern: fourth-grade performance is around the low level, fifth-grade improves somewhat to a moderate level, and sixth-grade is the strongest of the three years, reaching roughly the middle of the proficiency range. Science proficiency in fifth grade, the only grade tested in science at this school, is low. All students tested completed their assessments. None of these numbers approach the midpoint of performance among the county's districts; in fact, Cicero East's overall proficiency sits in the bottom quartile when compared against other schools in Cook County.
Illinois recently revised its state assessment cut scores for proficiency in several subjects, so direct year-to-year comparisons are not available. The school is one of the regular public elementary schools in Cicero School District 99, which serves the town's K-8 population. The district recently adopted a structured literacy approach to reading instruction across all elementary grades, emphasizing explicit and systematic teaching of word recognition and decoding. The district has also embedded the Professional Learning Communities model into teacher collaboration, meaning instructional planning now happens through regular cycles of inquiry using student data.
The school's neighborhood is fully built out, sitting on the residential side of Cicero's densely mixed commercial and residential fabric. Cermak Road, historically a Czech and now largely Spanish-language commercial corridor, is nearby. The town is very walkable, with multiple bus routes and close access to the CTA Pink Line, which runs to downtown Chicago. Housing in the Cicero 60804 zip code is modest in cost relative to the broader region, with median home values and median rents well below Illinois and national benchmarks. This affordability is paired with relatively low price-to-income ratios, making homeownership and rental housing accessible to working families, though both are climbing. The town is a fully built-out inner ring of the metro area; growth is incremental, with the housing stock remaining stable and the economy anchored in manufacturing, retail, healthcare, and public services.
Detailed special education and English learner enrollment numbers, discipline records, chronic absenteeism rates, and staffing information were not provided. A parent considering this school may want to request additional information on these topics directly from the school.
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