Barton Elem School

Set in Chicago, Illinois, Barton Elem School is a middle-of-the-pack elementary-level community, run under Chicago Public Schools Dist 299. It enrolls 411 students across grades pre-K through 8.

Barton Elem School is one of 622 schools operated by Chicago Public Schools Dist 299, a district that instructs 324,396 students overall.

Looking at the student body, Barton Elem School logs that the largest single group is Black, at 78% of enrollment; the rest comes out to 22% Hispanic. By comparison, Cook County as a whole is about 22% Black, so the school skews noticeably more Black than its surroundings.

Looking at school resources, Barton Elem School logs 34 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 12.0:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 13.9:1 average. Around 90% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. Set against Cook County (around 66%), the school's rate is noticeably above typical.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Barton Elem School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 19.8%, the actual is 10.9%, a residual of -8.9 points.

Around the school, the surrounding county (Cook County) reports that the typical household earns roughly $83,498 per year, about 43% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and the poverty rate sits near 10%. Across Cook County's 1406 public schools (combined enrollment of about 697,934 students), Barton Elem School is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Joplin Elem School, around 0.4 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Barton Elem School. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Barton Elem School at 5th of 9; the average score across the group is 15.9%.

Barton Elem School operates from a city-core location.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count grew 7%: 383 students in 2018 compared to 411 in 2025. Over the same period, the Hispanic share grew from 2% to 22%. The student-to-teacher ratio fell from 15.1:1 in 2018 to 12.0:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, recent activity here tends to focus on fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.