Bent Elem School

Bent Elem School is an elementary campus of reasonably sized scale in Bloomington, Illinois, part of Bloomington SD 87, instructing 389 students in grades K through 5.

Bloomington SD 87 runs 9 schools in total, collectively educating 4,809 students. Bent Elem School is one of those campuses.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Bent Elem School reports that 52% of students identify as Hispanic, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups. The remainder consists of 23% White, 14% Black, 11% multiracial. That is considerably more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 6%.

On the resource side, Bent Elem School logs 27 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 14.4:1. That tracks the state average closely. Roughly 67% of students at Bent Elem School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. That share is north of McLean County's rate of about 40%.

With demographic context factored in, Bent Elem School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 32.9%, the actual is 27.3%, a residual of -5.7 points.

Zooming out to the county, community-level numbers for McLean County indicate the typical household earns roughly $79,905 per year, 47% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and roughly 7% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, McLean County runs 60 public schools (combined enrollment of about 23,759 students), of which Bent Elem School is one.

Nearest neighbor: Sheridan Elem School, around 0.7 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Bent Elem School. On composite proficiency, Bent Elem School comes 6th of 8 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 31.9%.

The school occupies a downtown site.

Looking at the recent track record. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Bent Elem School has expanded 9%, going from 357 students in 2018 to 389 in 2025. The Hispanic share of enrollment rose from 39% to 52% over that span.

On the community side, posts here usually surface around science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.