The top reported proficiency rate is 63% in English language arts. The lowest is 42% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Lace Elem School
Lace Elementary School serves grades three through five in Darien, a planned residential suburb about seventeen miles west of Chicago in southern DuPage County. The school sits in a family-centered community organized around single-family homes on quarter- and half-acre lots, where most employment lies outside the city. Darien has no traditional downtown core; public facilities and schools are scattered across the landscape. Housing costs in the area are moderate, with typical home values in the mid-range for the region and monthly rents reflective of suburban Chicago pricing.
Lace enrolls a small student body of about four hundred students across its three grades. The enrollment is diverse: roughly a majority of students are white, with substantial populations of Hispanic students, Black students, and smaller numbers of Asian students and students identifying as multiracial. Free-or-reduced-price lunch data is not available for the school; family economic information remains an open question for anyone evaluating program access.
In spring 2025 Illinois state testing, Lace students showed mixed proficiency across math and English language arts. In math, fourth graders performed strongest, with roughly two-thirds meeting state proficiency standards, while third graders fell near that level at a modest majority and fifth graders dropped to roughly half meeting standards. English proficiency was similar: fourth graders were strongest at roughly seventy percent proficient, third graders slightly higher than half, and fifth graders in the mid-range at a little above half proficient. A science assessment administered to fifth graders showed lower performance, with a little over four in ten meeting state standards. Participation rates were consistently high across subjects and grades, above ninety-five percent. The school's overall proficiency index places it below the midpoint compared to other schools in DuPage County, where measured schools average in the low-to-mid sixty-percent range.
The proficiency dip from fourth to fifth grade in both reading and math is notable. A parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand whether it reflects curriculum transitions, testing difficulty, the specific cohort, or other instructional patterns. The science result in fifth grade is also worth attention; performance there trails behind reading and math by a meaningful margin.
Beginning in the 2024-25 school year, Darien School District 61 implemented Late Start Wednesdays for all grades. In 2025-26 this expanded district-wide to K-8. On Late Start Wednesdays, students at Lace arrive at 8:55 a.m. instead of the regular start time, as the district uses the earlier hour for staff professional learning. This is a recurring weekly schedule change that affects childcare, work start times, and family logistics every week, a change worth factoring into any family's commute or before-school routine.
The district adopted a new Strategic Plan in March 2022 with finalized Greatness Indicators for measuring progress, so instruction and school direction are now shaped by that multi-year framework. Information on special populations such as English learners and students with disabilities is not available in the data provided.
Darien itself is largely built-out with infill activity rather than rapid expansion. The community is car-oriented, centered on expressway interchanges and county highways rather than walkable streets. The Indian Prairie Public Library and Darien Sportsplex serve as civic anchors. Metra commuter rail is not available within the city; residents typically use Pace buses or drive to nearby Downers Grove stations to reach Chicago.
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