Original Research by School Decision on Raymond Benson Primary School
Raymond Benson Primary School serves pre-kindergarten through second grade in Itasca, a small DuPage County village northwest of Chicago that blends a walkable, historic downtown with office and industrial parks on its edges. The school enrolls a small student body representative of the broader Itasca community: a majority white enrollment with meaningful shares of Hispanic, Asian, and multiracial students.
State academic testing data were not available for this school, which is typical for a primary school serving only grades pre-K through two, as Illinois does not administer standardized assessments at those grade levels. A reader evaluating Benson cannot draw on state proficiency metrics the way a parent would for an elementary school serving tested grades. What is available is the district context: Itasca School District 10 completed a multi-year curriculum overhaul across all three of its schools within the past several years, focused on alignment, rigor, and relevance. In 2024, all three district schools earned the Illinois State Board of Education's top "Exemplary" designation, awarded to schools in the state's highest-performing tier with no underperforming student groups. This district-level academic positioning offers a baseline sense of where primary-grade instruction sits within the district's overall academic trajectory.
The school itself has undergone substantial physical change. Voters approved a bond referendum in 2020 to secure building entrances, upgrade building systems, construct new science labs, modernize library media centers, and add an addition at Raymond Benson Primary School. The district delayed bond issuance until after the economy stabilized, so the property tax impact began in 2022 and added a measurable amount to annual taxes for homeowners. The Benson School Enhancement Project construction continued through the summer of 2025, meaning recent families moving to Itasca should expect these capital improvements as a finished reality.
Itasca itself is a small, established village with strong civic identity. The historic downtown along Walnut Street forms a compact, walkable core with local merchants, restaurants, and a new riverwalk. Beyond downtown, the built environment is suburban: tree-lined residential streets and auto-oriented commercial corridors. The village is pursuing transit-oriented downtown growth; Itasca Station, a mixed-use development with apartments and ground-floor retail, is under construction at the Metra station and expected to complete in 2027. This development activity signals slow but intentional change in the village's character. The housing market in the Itasca zip code sits in the moderate to upper-moderate range for DuPage County, with home values and rental costs both reflecting a stable, desirable suburban location. Families considering Raymond Benson should anticipate a well-maintained community school in a village actively investing in both its civic core and its schools.
The school's location in the village places it within walking and biking distance of downtown amenities and the Metra station, and near the district administration building, underscoring Itasca's compact, civic-center orientation. Enrollment is stable and age-appropriate for the grades served. Information about free and reduced-price lunch eligibility and English learner enrollment was not available in the data, so a parent wanting to understand the school's student-support profile may want to look into those details with the school directly.
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