The top reported proficiency rate is 87% in Math. The lowest is 81% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Everett Elem School
Everett Elementary serves kindergarten through fourth grade in Lake Forest, an affluent North Shore suburb about thirty miles north of downtown Chicago. The school sits within Lake Forest SD 67, a small district serving the city and neighboring Lake Bluff and Knollwood.
The school enrolls a modest number of students, drawn from a predominantly white, college-educated, affluent neighborhood. Publicly reported demographic data shows the enrollment is substantially white, with smaller shares of Asian, Hispanic, and multiracial students. Free-or-reduced-price lunch counts and data on students with IEPs or English learners were not available, a gap common in elementary-level reporting that may reflect limited need for such services in this setting or data suppression for privacy.
On the most recent Illinois state assessment (IAR), fourth-grade performance was notably strong. In both English language arts and math, fourth graders posted proficiency rates well above what is typical among schools in Lake County. Third-grade proficiency in math was also solid, though third-grade English language arts showed more dispersed results. Testing data for fifth grade and above do not appear because the school does not serve those grades. When proficiency results from grades three and four are averaged together across both subjects, the school's overall performance places it in the top quartile among Lake County's districts, a clear strength.
The neighborhood Everett serves reflects Lake Forest's character: affluent, architecturally historic, and built at low density. Housing values in the surrounding area are substantial, and the market is slow-moving, with homes typically taking about a month to sell. Rents are correspondingly high. This is a community where most families have high incomes and educational attainment, a context that typically correlates with strong early-grade achievement.
District 67 has adopted a competency-based Portrait of a Learner framework focusing on six core competencies—communication, adaptability, citizenship, empathy, critical thinking, and confidence—that now guide curriculum and instruction across its elementary schools. This represents a deliberate pedagogical direction toward deeper competency development beyond content mastery alone. The district has also committed to avoiding large referendums, instead using its existing debt authority and budget reallocation to fund facility improvements. This fiscal approach means families face smaller, more incremental tax requests than some peer districts. The high school district serving Everett graduates did pass a substantial bond referendum in 2023 to renovate the decades-old high school, an investment that carries property-tax implications for the shared tax base.
Everett is a conventional neighborhood elementary school serving a highly resourced, predominantly affluent community. Its strong early-grade test results, coupled with the district's pedagogical focus on broader competencies and its fiscally conservative approach, describe an environment suited to families seeking a traditional elementary pathway in a high-income setting. The data does not provide detail on class size, specific curricular breadth, after-school programs, or other program-level offerings, gaps a parent may want to explore with the school directly.
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