Harlan Community Academy HS

Located at 9652 S Michigan Ave, in Chicago, Illinois, Harlan Community Academy HS is an one-room-style secondary school that instructs 220 students (grades 9 through 12), part of Chicago Public Schools Dist 299. Enrollment runs roughly 74% leaner than the state mean of about 834.

Chicago Public Schools Dist 299 comprises 622 schools with combined enrollment of 324,396 students; Harlan Community Academy HS is among them.

On demographics, Harlan Community Academy HS records that 94% of students identify as Black, making the school strongly Black-majority. The remainder looks like 5% Hispanic. That is meaningfully more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 22%.

In terms of school funding signals, The school employs 22 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 10.0:1. The state averages around 13.8:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. About 90% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. Set against Cook County (around 66%), the school's rate is meaningfully above typical.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Harlan Community Academy HS performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 19.3%, the actual is 6.7%, a residual of -12.6 points.

Across the wider county, 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 roughly 10% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Harlan Community Academy HS is one of 1406 public schools in Cook County (combined enrollment of about 697,934 students).

Nearest neighbor: Gillespie Elem School, around 0.4 miles off. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Harlan Community Academy HS at 8th of 9; the average score across the group is 22.7%.

Harlan Community Academy HS operates from a downtown location.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count fell 42%: 382 students in 2018 compared to 220 in 2025. The Black share of enrollment decreased from 99% to 94% over that span. Class-load math has narrowed: from 15.1:1 in 2018 to 10.0:1 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.