Elmwood Elem School, Elmwood Park IL

Original Research by School Decision on Elmwood Elem School

Elmwood Elementary serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Elmwood Park, a dense inner-ring Chicago suburb built out mostly in the 1920s with classic bungalow-style homes and active commercial corridors along North Avenue and Grand Avenue. The school enrolled about five hundred forty students in its last reported year, drawn from a student body that is roughly one-half Hispanic, one-third white, and a small share of Asian and Black students. The school is located at 2319 North 76th Avenue, within walking distance of the village's civic hub at Conti Parkway where the library, recreation center, and aquatic center anchor community life.

Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) data from 2024-25 shows math proficiency across third, fourth, and fifth grades clustering in the range of roughly 60 percent in grade three, falling to roughly 57 percent in grade four, then declining sharply to roughly 36 percent in grade five. In English Language Arts, grade three reported proficiency of roughly 46 percent, grade four around 54 percent, and grade five around 60 percent. Fifth-grade science proficiency on the Illinois Science Assessment reached roughly 42 percent. All students tested participated fully. The pattern here shows relative strength in grade five ELA but notable softness in upper-elementary math, particularly in grade five, where proficiency drops below 40 percent. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, particularly if they have a child entering or in fifth grade, to understand what factors drive the math decline and what supports exist.

When situated against the hundred-and-seventy-five school districts across Cook County, Elmwood Elementary's overall proficiency index places it above the midpoint, a modest strength that reflects the mixed grade-by-grade picture. The school sits within the Elmwood Park CUSD 401 district, which recently completed a renovation and expansion of this building funded by a 2020 voter-approved bond. Major construction ran from 2022 through summer 2024 and modernized classrooms, mechanical systems, and added new classroom and pre-K/kindergarten space. That facilities work is now behind the school.

The district has also adopted the Bridges math curriculum district-wide for grades K-5 beginning in the 2023-24 school year, so the current math instruction reflects a curriculum change that is still relatively new. The elementary school does not serve middle or high school grades, so no graduation rate or secondary pathway data apply here.

The Elmwood Park housing market shows a median home value just above three hundred forty thousand, up modestly year over year, with median rent at approximately sixteen hundred eighty, also up a small percentage. The area is very walkable by suburban standards, and the Metra Milwaukee District West Line station sits two blocks east of the village's civic center, placing the school in an accessible, transit-proximate location. Population is essentially flat to slightly declining, with no large-scale new development planned, though infill construction and home renovation projects are active.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 361%

School 61% · District 55% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above county median

Grade 457%

School 57% · District 53% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 20 pts above state median · ▲ 28 pts above county median

Grade 536%

School 36% · District 33% · ▲ 3 pts above district

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

English language arts

Grade 346%

School 46% · District 52% · ▼ 6 pts below district

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

Grade 454%

School 54% · District 59% · ▼ 4 pts below district

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

Grade 560%

School 60% · District 58% · ▲ 3 pts above district

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

Science

Grade 542%

School 42% · District 42%

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

This schoolElmwood Park CUSD 401, 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 6Lower-income46%Higher-income59%13 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income20%Higher-income28%8 pp gap