21st Century Primary Center

Set in Park Forest, Illinois, 21st Century Primary Center is a micro-enrollment K-5 school, one of the schools within Park Forest SD 163. It educates 152 students across grades K through 3. Compared to the state average of about 381 students per school, that is 60% below typical.

Park Forest SD 163 runs 6 schools in total, collectively educating 1,524 students. 21st Century Primary Center is one of those campuses.

On the student-mix side, 21st Century Primary Center reports that Black students make up the majority at 76%; the rest is composed of 13% Hispanic, 11% multiracial. That is noticeably more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 22%.

On the income-and-resources front, The school lists 14 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 10.7:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 13.9:1 average. An estimated 80% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. By comparison, Cook County runs at roughly 66%, so the school's eligibility rate is somewhat above the surrounding baseline.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), 21st Century Primary Center tracks the demographic baseline. The model predicts 25.6% given the school's FRL share; actual proficiency is 28.7%.

In the surrounding community, community-level numbers for Cook County indicate median household income runs about $83,498, 43% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 10%. 21st Century Primary Center is one of 1406 public schools in Cook County (combined enrollment of about 697,934 students).

The closest other public school is Blackhawk Primary Center, roughly 0.5 miles away. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around 21st Century Primary Center. On composite proficiency, 21st Century Primary Center comes 5th of 7 in the immediate cluster, ahead of the nearby-schools average of 27.5%.

The school occupies an outer-ring site.

Looking at the recent track record. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at 21st Century Primary Center has contracted 21%, going from 193 students in 2018 to 152 in 2025. Black enrollment moved from 86% to 76% across the same window. The student-to-teacher ratio fell from 12.4:1 in 2018 to 10.7:1 today.

Within the allk12 community for this school, posts here usually surface around classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. The community welcomes input from current and former families.