Crosby Elem Sch

Crosby Elem Sch is one of the sprawling elementary schools in Harvard, Illinois, overseen by Harvard CUSD 50, with 655 students on its rolls from grades K through 3. By comparison, Illinois's public schools average about 381 students each, so Crosby Elem Sch sits 72% larger than that benchmark.

Within Harvard CUSD 50, which oversees 5 schools and 2,532 students, Crosby Elem Sch is one campus in the system.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Crosby Elem Sch logs that the largest single group is Hispanic, at 72% of enrollment. Other groups include 23% White, 2% Black. The wider county runs roughly 16% Hispanic, putting the school's mix visibly more Hispanic than the area baseline.

Looking at the economic backdrop, The school lists 62 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 10.6:1. The state averages around 13.9:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. An estimated 64% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. That share is higher than McHenry County's rate of about 35%.

After controlling for student poverty, Crosby Elem Sch is in the bottom 10% of Illinois public schools. The BeatsExpectations model predicts schools with this FRL share to land around 34.4%; Crosby Elem Sch posts 10.6%, -23.8 points below that line.

Around the school, the surrounding county (McHenry County) reports that the typical household earns roughly $104,802 per year, about 35% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 4%. Crosby Elem Sch is one of 89 public schools in McHenry County (combined enrollment of about 50,123 students).

Washington Elem School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 1.1 miles from this campus. 4 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Crosby Elem Sch at 8th of 8; the average score across the group is 35.6%.

The school occupies a small-town site.

Over the past 7-year window. Over the past 7-year window, the student count decreased 19%: 806 students in 2018 compared to 655 in 2025. White enrollment moved from 31% to 23% across the same window. The student-to-teacher ratio fell from 14.9:1 in 2018 to 10.6:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, members of the Crosby Elem Sch community share and discuss open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.