Kell Grade School

Kell Grade School, a very small primary school in Kell, Illinois, operated by Kell Cons SD 2, enrolls 64 students, covering grades pre-K through 8. By comparison, Illinois's public schools average about 381 students each, so Kell Grade School sits 83% smaller than that benchmark.

Kell Grade School is a school of Kell Cons SD 2, the district that handles curriculum, staffing, and budget for the campus.

Demographically, Kell Grade School lists that 94% of students identify as White, making the school strongly White-majority. Beyond that, the school lists 3% Hispanic. That composition is broadly in line with Marion County as a whole.

On the income-and-resources front, Staff filings list 9 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 7.1:1 students per teacher. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 13.9:1 average. An estimated 55% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. By comparison, Marion County runs at roughly 64%, so the school's eligibility rate is below the surrounding baseline.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Kell Grade School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 39.9%, the actual is 31.1%, a residual of -8.9 points.

Around the school, census data for Marion County shows the typical household earns roughly $61,240 per year, about 17% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 11%. Kell Grade School is one of 27 public schools in Marion County (combined enrollment of about 5,636 students).

Nearest neighbor: Rome Comm Cons Elem School, around 4.1 miles off. Within five miles, there are 3 other public schools. Among the 9 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Kell Grade School ranks 8th on composite proficiency, below the local average of 46.9%.

Geographically, the school is in a countryside area.

Over the past 7-year window. Kell Grade School's enrollment has decreased 35% since 2018, when it stood at 98 (now 64). The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 8.3:1 in 2018 to 7.1:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, posts here usually surface around science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.