Coal City Elem School

Coal City Elem School, a compact elementary-level community in Coal City, Illinois, overseen by Coal City CUSD 1, educates 302 students, covering grades 2 through 3. That puts it 21% smaller than the typical public school in Illinois, which averages around 381 students.

Within Coal City CUSD 1, which oversees 5 schools and 2,129 students, Coal City Elem School is one campus in the system.

Looking at the student body, Coal City Elem School records that the largest single group is White, at 76% of enrollment. Other groups include 18% Hispanic, 3% multiracial. By comparison, Grundy County as a whole is about 86% White, so the school skews visibly less White than its surroundings.

Looking at school resources, Staff filings list 21 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 14.4:1 students per teacher. That tracks the state average closely. An estimated 34% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

After controlling for student poverty, Coal City Elem School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 51.6%, the actual is 53.8%, a residual of +2.1 points.

Across the wider county, community-level numbers for Grundy County indicate the typical household earns roughly $92,235 per year, roughly 24% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 5% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Grundy County's 28 public schools (combined enrollment of about 12,070 students), Coal City Elem School is one campus in the mix.

Coal City Intermediate School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.4 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Coal City Elem School. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Coal City Elem School at 4th of 8; the average score across the group is 48.6%.

The campus sits in a small-town setting.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count shrank 11%: 338 students in 2018 compared to 302 in 2025. Over the same period, the White share fell from 89% to 76%. The student-to-teacher ratio narrowed from 15.7:1 in 2018 to 14.4:1 today.

On this page, 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.