Hickory Grove Elementary School

Hickory Grove Elementary School is one of the sprawling elementary-level communitys in Dunlap, Illinois, one of the schools within Dunlap CUSD 323, with 865 students on its rolls from grades pre-K through 5. Enrollment runs roughly 127% above the state mean of about 381.

Hickory Grove Elementary School is one of 8 schools operated by Dunlap CUSD 323, a district that instructs 4,837 students overall.

On the student-mix side, Hickory Grove Elementary School shows that the most-represented group is White (48%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. The remainder consists of 40% Asian, 7% Black, 3% Hispanic. By comparison, Peoria County as a whole is about 67% White, so the school skews meaningfully less White than its surroundings.

On the resource side, On paper, Hickory Grove Elementary School has 45 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 19.2:1. The state averages around 13.9:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. An estimated 3% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. Set against Peoria County (around 57%), the school's rate is somewhat below typical.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Hickory Grove Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 69.7%, the actual is 75.8%, a residual of +6.1 points.

Zooming out to the county, census data for Peoria County shows the typical household earns roughly $65,108 per year, about 35% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and roughly 10% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Peoria County's 81 public schools (combined enrollment of about 27,827 students), Hickory Grove Elementary School is one campus in the mix.

The closest other public school is Banner Elementary School, roughly 1.0 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Hickory Grove Elementary School comes 1st of 9 in the immediate cluster, above the nearby-schools average of 65.3%.

The campus sits in an inner-city setting.

Trend over the last 7 years. Hickory Grove Elementary School's enrollment has grew 16% since 2018, when it stood at 744 (now 865). Over the same period, the White share edged down from 52% to 48%. The student-to-teacher ratio rose from 16.7:1 in 2018 to 19.2:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, the feed for Hickory Grove Elementary School typically covers sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.