Cather Elem School

Cather Elem School is a compact K-5 school in Chicago, Illinois, overseen by Chicago Public Schools Dist 299. The school educates 321 students in grades pre-K through 8.

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

Looking at the student body, Cather Elem School logs that 90% of students identify as Black, making the school strongly Black-majority. Other groups include 8% Hispanic. By comparison, Cook County as a whole is about 22% Black, so the school skews noticeably more Black than its surroundings.

Looking at the economic backdrop, Cather Elem School shows 32 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 10.0:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 13.9:1 average. Roughly 97% of students at Cather Elem School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. By comparison, Cook County runs at roughly 66%, so the school's eligibility rate is higher than the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Cather Elem School sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 15.4%; this one delivers 18.4%.

In the broader community, Cook County reports that the typical household earns roughly $83,498 per year, roughly 43% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 10%. Cather Elem School is one of 1406 public schools in Cook County (combined enrollment of about 697,934 students).

The closest other public school is LEARN Charter Excel Campus, roughly 0.3 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 9 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Cather Elem School ranks 6th on composite proficiency, below the local average of 22.9%.

The school occupies a metropolitan site.

Over the past 7-year window. Over the past 7-year window, the student count ticked down 14%: 375 students in 2018 compared to 321 in 2025. The Hispanic share of enrollment climbed from 3% to 8% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio narrowed from 15.2:1 in 2018 to 10.0:1 today.

On the community side, members of the Cather Elem School community share and discuss school events, parent volunteer needs, and clubs. The community welcomes input from current and former families.