The top reported proficiency rate is 81% in English language arts. The lowest is 53% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Blythe Park Elem School
Blythe Park Elementary is a small school serving kindergarten through fifth grade in Riverside, a historic, densely planned village designed by Frederick Law Olmsted roughly nine miles west of downtown Chicago. The school sits in an affluent, leafy residential setting with curvilinear streets, large setbacks, gas-lit lanterns, and ample parkland. Housing values in the area are substantial, and the community is essentially built out, with population and development constrained by preservation rules tied to Olmsted's original design.
The school enrolls around two hundred students across its grade span, with a student body that is predominantly white, with a meaningful share of Hispanic students and smaller representation from Asian, Black, and multiracial backgrounds. Free-or-reduced-price lunch eligibility data was not available; special-population enrollment figures, including students with IEPs and English learners, were also not reported in the public data.
On state assessments administered in 2024-25, the school's performance is mixed. In math, proficiency among students testing in grades three, four, and five ranges from the mid-to-high seventies in third and fourth grade down to below seventy percent in fifth grade. In English language arts, results vary more sharply: third grade sits at around seventy percent proficiency, fourth grade at roughly the same level, and fifth grade at over ninety percent. Science proficiency in fifth grade is below fifty-five percent. The school's overall proficiency index across all tested subjects and grades places it in the top quartile of schools in Cook County, driven primarily by strong results in fourth and fifth grade English. Test participation was high across the tested grades.
One notable pattern is the decline in math proficiency from grades three and four into grade five, which a parent may want to look into further with the school. Science remains a softer subject area. The assessment itself changed scoring criteria this year, so year-to-year trend comparisons are not available from the data.
District 96, which operates Blythe Park, has made deliberate investments in classroom instruction since 2021. The district hired its first instructional coach that year, expanded to two coaches the following year, approved a third in spring 2024, and planned a fourth for 2025-26. These coaches work inside elementary classrooms to strengthen teaching practice across the district. The district also negotiated a multi-year teacher contract in 2021 that reduced health insurance premium contributions for employees and locked in tiered salary increases through 2025, a structural move aimed at teacher retention and classroom continuity.
Blythe Park has no state testing results reported for grades six and beyond because the school serves only through fifth grade. A graduation rate is not applicable. The school is a regular public elementary school, not a charter or magnet program.
Families considering this school are looking at a small, neighborhood elementary in an affluent, historically preserved suburb with strong walkability and Metra rail access to Chicago. The peer environment is predominantly middle- to upper-middle-class and white. Academic results show capacity in reading and language arts, with math and science as areas where growth may be needed. The district's ongoing investment in instructional coaching and teacher compensation suggests a commitment to sustained teaching quality, though the visible effect of those initiatives on student outcomes is not yet measurable from the data at hand.
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