Frederick Nerge Elem School, Roselle IL

Original Research by School Decision on Frederick Nerge Elem School

Frederick Nerge Elementary is a kindergarten-through-sixth-grade public school in Roselle, a northwest Chicago suburb straddling DuPage and Cook counties. The school serves roughly a third of the district's schools on a single campus, with enrollment distributed fairly evenly across grades, slightly heavier in the upper elementary years.

The student body reflects significant diversity. The school enrolls a substantial majority who identify as white, with substantial shares of Asian, Hispanic, and Black students, and a small number of Native American and multiracial students. Free-and-reduced-price lunch data was not available in the records reviewed.

On the most recent state assessments, the school shows a mixed picture in reading and math proficiency. In English language arts, performance climbs with grade level: third graders showed lower proficiency while fourth through sixth graders posted increasingly strong results, with sixth grade notably above the school's math average in the same grades. Math proficiency holds relatively steady across grades three through six, hovering near the low-to-mid range. Fifth-grade science proficiency came in at about half. The school's overall proficiency index across tested subjects and grades places it above the midpoint of districts in Cook County, though raw proficiency rates in the individual assessments remain modest.

The school is part of Schaumburg CCSD 54, a district in active instructional transition. Beginning in 2024-25, the district implemented a new K-8 math curriculum (Origo Stepping Stones for K-7 and Imagine IM for grades 7-8) and launched a redesigned K-2 literacy plan centered on foundational reading skills, print concepts, and phonological awareness, with universal dyslexia screening at kindergarten. These changes mean Frederick Nerge families are encountering materially different math and early reading instruction than in prior years, anchored in structured, science-of-reading approaches. Parents considering the school should understand that both math and reading are actively reshaping across the district.

Roselle itself is a bedroom community of roughly mid-sized population straddling two counties, with a small historic Main Street / Town Center anchoring a walkable downtown core and broader car-oriented neighborhoods of Craftsman homes, mid-century ranches, and higher-priced estates. The Roselle Metra station sits in downtown, offering commuter rail to Chicago. The community is in active redevelopment, with a mixed-use library project planned, a new luxury apartment complex leasing, and grant-funded improvements to the bike-and-pedestrian network connecting downtown to the Metra station and along key corridors, all slated for the next few years. Housing values in the broader area are moderate within the Chicago region, and the area is served by significant manufacturing, retail, and health care sectors.

For a parent evaluating this school, the key frame is instructional change and modest absolute proficiency on recent state tests, set against a district deliberately remaking how it teaches math and early literacy using newer, research-based approaches. Whether this school is right depends on comfort with that transition period, school-level support systems (which were not available in the data), and family priorities around peer composition and community fit. The school's standing relative to others in the county is above average, but individual proficiency levels are below the national archetype for a typical suburban elementary school.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 356%

School 56% · District 57% · ▼ 1 pts below district

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

Grade 458%

School 58% · District 59% · ▼ 1 pts below district

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

Grade 554%

School 54% · District 51% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▲ 24 pts above state median · ▲ 32 pts above county median

Grade 663%

School 63% · District 57% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 39 pts above state median · ▲ 46 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 341%

School 41% · District 54% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Grade 469%

School 69% · District 67% · ▲ 2 pts above district

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

Grade 572%

School 72% · District 67% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 20 pts above state median · ▲ 26 pts above county median

Grade 677%

School 77% · District 76% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 26 pts above state median · ▲ 34 pts above county median

Science

Grade 551%

School 51% · District 48% · ▲ 4 pts above district

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

This schoolSchaumburg CCSD 54, 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.