Highland Elem School

Located at 190 N Melrose Ave, in Elgin, Illinois, Highland Elem School is a heavily attended primary school that caters to 616 students (grades pre-K through 6), operated by SD U-46. That puts it 62% bigger than the typical public school in Illinois, which averages around 381 students.

Across the 51 schools in SD U-46 (34,036 students total), Highland Elem School accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

On demographics, Highland Elem School shows that the largest single group is Hispanic, at 78% of enrollment. Beyond that, the school lists 9% Black, 6% White, 4% multiracial. That is noticeably more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 33%.

On the income-and-resources front, On paper, Highland Elem School has 38 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 16.1:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 13.9:1 average. Roughly 77% of students at Highland Elem School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. By comparison, Kane County runs at roughly 48%, so the school's eligibility rate is somewhat above the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Highland Elem School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 27.0%, the actual is 20.9%, a residual of -6.1 points.

Across the wider county, census data for Kane County shows the typical household earns roughly $103,163 per year, roughly 38% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 6%. Highland Elem School is one of 167 public schools in Kane County (combined enrollment of about 87,252 students).

The closest other public school is Kimball Middle School, roughly 0.4 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Highland Elem School at 5th of 9; the average score across the group is 22.4%.

Geographically, the school is in a metropolitan area.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count contracted 3%: 637 students in 2018 compared to 616 in 2025. Class-load math has narrowed: from 20.6:1 in 2018 to 16.1:1 in 2025.

On this page, posts here usually surface around classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Members of the school community can share what they know.