Joplin Elem School

Joplin Elem School operates as an intimate K-5 school in Chicago, Illinois, one of the schools within Chicago Public Schools Dist 299. Current enrollment sits at 283 students spanning grades pre-K through 8. That puts it 26% below the typical public school in Illinois, which averages around 381 students.

Chicago Public Schools Dist 299 runs 622 schools in total, collectively educating 324,396 students. Joplin Elem School is one of those campuses.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Joplin Elem School logs that nearly all students (83%) are Black. Other groups include 16% Hispanic. By comparison, Cook County as a whole is about 22% Black, so the school skews considerably more Black than its surroundings.

Looking at school resources, Staff filings list 24 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 11.8:1 students per teacher. The state averages around 13.9:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. About 96% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. That share is higher than Cook County's rate of about 66%.

After controlling for student poverty, Joplin Elem School sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 16.0%; this one delivers 28.0%.

In the surrounding community, community-level numbers for Cook County indicate median household earnings sit near $83,498, roughly 43% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 10% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, Cook County runs 1406 public schools (combined enrollment of about 697,934 students), of which Joplin Elem School is one.

CICS - Ralph Ellison Campus is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.1 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Joplin Elem School comes 2nd of 9 in the immediate cluster, above the nearby-schools average of 15.3%.

Geographically, the school is in a high-density area.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Joplin Elem School has ticked down 31%, going from 409 students in 2018 to 283 in 2025. Black enrollment moved from 98% to 83% across the same window. The student-to-teacher ratio pulled in from 17.4:1 in 2018 to 11.8:1 today.

Inside the community feed, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.