Cullen Elem School

Cullen Elem School is one of the compact elementary-level communitys in Chicago, Illinois, part of Chicago Public Schools Dist 299, with 176 students on its rolls from grades K through 8. That puts it 54% smaller than the typical public school in Illinois, which averages around 381 students.

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

In terms of who attends, Cullen Elem School lists that 96% of students identify as Black, making the school strongly Black-majority. Beyond that, the school logs 3% Hispanic. That is visibly more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 22%.

On the income-and-resources front, The school employs 15 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 11.7:1. The state averages around 13.9:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. Roughly 97% of students at Cullen 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 somewhat above the surrounding baseline.

After controlling for student poverty, Cullen Elem School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 15.4%, the actual is 24.1%, a residual of +8.6 points.

Around the school, ACS estimates for Cook County put the typical household earns roughly $83,498 per year, roughly 43% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 10% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Cook County's 1406 public schools (combined enrollment of about 697,934 students), Cullen Elem School is one campus in the mix.

The closest other public school is Poe Elem Classical School, roughly 0.3 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Cullen Elem School at 3rd of 9; the average score across the group is 31.3%.

Cullen Elem School operates from a downtown location.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count edged down 5%: 185 students in 2018 compared to 176 in 2025. Class-load math has tightened: from 19.4:1 in 2018 to 11.7:1 in 2025.

On allk12, posts here usually surface around sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.