F B Mccord Elem School, Burbank IL

Original Research by School Decision on F B Mccord Elem School

F.B. McCord Elementary School is a small school in Burbank, an established southwest Chicago suburb, serving about a quarter-thousand students from prekindergarten through fifth grade. The school sits within Burbank School District 111, which recently restructured its grade configuration so that all elementary schools now end at fifth grade, with all sixth, seventh, and eighth graders transitioning to Liberty Junior High. This change, implemented after Liberty's 2021 expansion, means McCord families now experience a single transition to a departmentalized middle school setting rather than moving through a K-8 building.

The student population is evenly mixed between Hispanic and white families, with a meaningful share of Asian students and very small numbers of Black and multiracial students. Demographic data on free or reduced-price lunch eligibility and English learner status were not available. The school draws from Burbank's working- and middle-class residential neighborhoods, where home values have been appreciating modestly and the housing market is moderately active. The surrounding area is characterized by dense single-family homes mixed with commercial corridors along Cicero and Harlem Avenues, where family-owned restaurants and ethnic markets reflect a substantial foreign-born population. The daily environment includes proximity to a major railyard and Midway Airport, which can bring noise and vibration.

McCord's state testing results in 2023-24 show limited proficiency across the grades and subjects tested. In math, only a small fraction of third graders reached proficiency or above, with an even smaller share in fourth and fifth grade. English language arts proficiency ran similarly low in grades three and four, though it rose noticeably in fifth grade. Science proficiency in fifth grade was modestly higher than reading and math but still below the midpoint. Across tested subjects and grades, the school's overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile relative to other schools in Cook County. These results indicate that most students are not yet meeting state standards, and a parent may want to look further into what academic supports and interventions the school has in place to help students close proficiency gaps.

The school operates as a regular public elementary school with no charter or magnet designation. State testing data was available for grades tested; no assessment data was reported for grades prekindergarten through two, which typically are not state-assessed. Other details about school discipline, course offerings, staffing levels, and chronic absenteeism were not available. The district has recently adopted a new English Language Arts curriculum, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Into Literature, at the junior high level to align instruction with state assessment formats, though the rollout to elementary schools was not specified in available sources.

Burbank itself is a built-out, mature suburb with very limited new residential construction; the market is mainly infill rehabilitation and modest home rehabs rather than new subdivisions. Civic life is distributed across the town rather than centered in a single downtown, with the public library on South Moody Avenue and commercial activity along the arterial corridors. The Park District runs seasonal recreation programs and a water park, and the local job market is anchored by manufacturing, health care, construction, and retail along the major commercial streets.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 326%

School 26% · District 46% · ▼ 20 pts below district

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

Grade 413%

School 13% · District 30% · ▼ 18 pts below district

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 16 pts below county median

Grade 511%

School 11% · District 26% · ▼ 16 pts below district

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 319%

School 19% · District 46% · ▼ 27 pts below district

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

Grade 421%

School 21% · District 44% · ▼ 23 pts below district

▼ 27 pts below state median · ▼ 19 pts below county median

Grade 532%

School 32% · District 56% · ▼ 24 pts below district

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 14 pts below county median

Science

Grade 534%

School 34% · District 28% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▲ 7 pts above county median

This schoolBurbank SD 111, 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 4Lower-income10%Higher-income36%26 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income15%Higher-income33%18 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income12%Higher-income33%22 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 4Lower-income13%Higher-income29%15 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income10%Higher-income25%15 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income12%Higher-income40%29 pp gap