Gale Elem Community Academy

Located at 1631 W Jonquil Ter, in Chicago, Illinois, Gale Elem Community Academy is a mid-sized elementary-level community that caters to 345 students (grades pre-K through 8), operated by Chicago Public Schools Dist 299.

Gale Elem Community Academy is one of 622 schools operated by Chicago Public Schools Dist 299, a district that instructs 324,396 students overall.

Looking at the student body, Gale Elem Community Academy logs that Black students make up the majority at 58%. Beyond that, the school logs 28% Hispanic, 6% White, 5% Asian, 3% multiracial. That is meaningfully more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 22%.

In terms of school funding signals, On paper, Gale Elem Community Academy has 30 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 11.6:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 13.9:1, putting Gale Elem Community Academy tighter than the state norm the norm. About 83% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. By comparison, Cook County runs at roughly 66%, so the school's eligibility rate is meaningfully above the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Gale Elem Community Academy falls in the UNDERPERFORMING tier of the BeatsExpectations residual. Given its student profile, a typical campus would land near 23.8%; this one comes in at 9.0%, -14.8 points off the demographic line.

In the surrounding community, community-level numbers for Cook County indicate median household income runs about $83,498, 43% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 10%. Gale Elem Community Academy is one of 1406 public schools in Cook County (combined enrollment of about 697,934 students).

Nearest neighbor: Jordan Elem Community School, around 0.4 miles off. 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), Gale Elem Community Academy ranks 9th on composite proficiency, below the local average of 33.8%.

The campus sits in a high-density setting.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Gale Elem Community Academy has expanded 7%, going from 323 students in 2018 to 345 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio pulled in from 18.4:1 in 2018 to 11.6:1 today.

Inside the community feed, posts here usually surface around sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.