River Grove Elem School, River Grove IL

Original Research by School Decision on River Grove Elem School

River Grove Elem School serves a highly diverse student body in a small suburban village northwest of Chicago. The school enrolls students from pre-K through eighth grade, with a meaningful presence across all those grade bands. Just over half the enrollment is Hispanic or Latino, with a substantial white population and smaller shares of Asian, Black, and multiracial students. The school sits in River Grove, a compact, dense community with deep European immigrant roots and a rapidly growing residential development footprint, home to Triton College and located about a ten-mile commute from downtown Chicago via Metra.

The school's academic results show a profile with low early elementary performance in math, rising proficiency in upper grades. In third-grade math, proficiency stands at the lower end; fourth grade drops further. By sixth and seventh grades, math proficiency climbs to the middle-to-upper range. English language arts follows a different trajectory: third grade sits around the lower-middle mark, but by sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, proficiency reaches the mid-to-upper range and higher. Science testing occurs only in fifth and eighth grades; fifth-grade science proficiency is low, while eighth-grade science shows stronger results. Overall, the school's proficiency index places it above the midpoint among the Cook County districts in the comparison set, a meaningful position that reflects gains in the middle and upper grades even as the earlier grades show pockets of challenge. A parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand what changes or supports begin in the middle grades.

The school's test participation rates are consistently high, and testing infrastructure appears solid. However, free-or-reduced-price lunch rates and special-education and English-learner enrollment counts are not available in the data, making it difficult to assess the scope of economic disadvantage or the density of services for students learning English or students with IEPs.

River Grove itself is undergoing significant change. A major 22-acre residential development called The Grove has begun near the Metra station with hundreds of new units planned, and the village recently adopted its first-ever comprehensive plan, Reimagine River Grove, which emphasizes housing diversity and transit-oriented growth. Population has remained essentially flat, but development pressure is reshaping the community's character. The local housing market shows moderate prices and rents, with owner-occupied single-family homes still the dominant housing type, though that baseline is shifting with new multi-family construction underway. Metra access and proximity to Chicago define the commuting pattern; most residents work outside the village.

The school is part of River Grove SD 85-5, a small district serving only this village. No recent referenda, major curriculum overhauls, or significant policy changes were found in publicly available sources, suggesting the district is operating in a steady-state mode. The school's website and additional program details were not available to review, so depth of electives, special offerings, or enrichment pathways cannot be confirmed from the data at hand.

This is a school in an immigrant-rooted, diversifying community where performance rises as students progress through upper grades, supported by high test participation and a proficiency index above county midpoint. The lower elementary math results and missing data on economic disadvantage and special populations warrant clarification directly with the school.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 333%

School 33% · District 33%

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 419%

School 19% · District 19%

▼ 18 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Grade 526%

School 26% · District 26%

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 645%

School 45% · District 45%

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

Grade 752%

School 52% · District 52%

▲ 24 pts above state median · ▲ 31 pts above county median

Grade 840%

School 40% · District 40%

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▲ 23 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 342%

School 42% · District 42%

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Grade 448%

School 48% · District 48%

even with state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 554%

School 54% · District 54%

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

Grade 681%

School 81% · District 81%

▲ 30 pts above state median · ▲ 38 pts above county median

Grade 763%

School 63% · District 63%

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▲ 18 pts above county median

Grade 876%

School 76% · District 76%

▲ 22 pts above state median · ▲ 29 pts above county median

Science

Grade 531%

School 31% · District 31%

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 856%

School 56% · District 56%

▲ 16 pts above state median · ▲ 29 pts above county median

This schoolRiver Grove SD 85-5, 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.