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What advice would you give to incoming students at Mark Twain Elem School?
Community prompt from u/allk12. Replies below.
Enrollment
524
Elementary
DISTRICT 480 · STATE 381
SCHOOL COMMUNITY·WHEELING CCSD 21·NCES 174221004228
Mark Twain Elementary School
515 E Merle Ln, Wheeling, IL 60090 · (847) 520-2785 · Cook County
GRADES PK–05ELEMENTARY21-SUBURBTITLE IREGULAR SCHOOL524 STUDENTS
Student : Teacher
12.8:1
41 FTE teachers
DISTRICT 12.9:1 · STATE 13.9:1
Free / Reduced Lunch
74%
390 students
DISTRICT 59% · STATE 56%
Community
5
0 members
Enrollment and student:teacher ratio compared against other elementary schools. Free/Reduced Lunch and demographics compared against all schools.
Enrollment by grade, 2024-25
| Grade | Students | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-K | 65 | 12% |
| Kindergarten | 68 | 13% |
| Grade 1 | 83 | 16% |
| Grade 2 | 85 | 16% |
| Grade 3 | 78 | 15% |
| Grade 4 | 67 | 13% |
| Grade 5 | 76 | 15% |
| Grade 7 | 2 | 0% |
Student demographics
42%Diversity index
The chance that two students picked at random belong to different racial or ethnic groups.
DISTRICT 65% · STATE 69% · US 70%
Student head counts by race/ethnicity from federal NCES enrollment data. District, state, and US figures are each group's share of all public school students in that area (US excludes territories). Very small groups may be suppressed in the source, so categories do not always sum exactly to total enrollment.
Gender split
Test scores
IAR + ISA 2024-25 . % Proficient (Levels 4-5)English Language Arts
25.9%
IL avg 51.0% . +8.5pp since 2023
Math
20.6%
IL avg 37.9% . +4.8pp since 2023
What this means: On the IAR + ISA, Illinois's statewide test, about 26 of every 100 students at this school read and write at grade level and about 21 of 100 do math at grade level. Across all Illinois schools, those numbers are about 51 and 38. Reading and writing scores are up about 9 points since 2023, while math scores are up about 5 points.
IAR + ISA results by year
| School year | English Language Arts | Math |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 25.9% | 20.6% |
| 2023-24 | 17.4% | 15.8% |
% Proficient (Levels 4-5), all students and all tested grades.
Source: IAR + ISA. All students, all grades. See all years and grades →
BeatsExpectations
Demographically-adjusted score · methodologyTier
AS EXPECTED
Performing as predicted given the school's student profile
Actual proficiency
25.5%
composite math + reading, all grades
Predicted
28.5%
based on IL schools with similar FRL share
Beats by
-3.0pp
below demographic expectation
What this means: About 26% of students here test proficient in math and reading, compared with the roughly 29% typical for Illinois schools with a similar share of low-income students. BeatsExpectations measures results against demographically similar schools rather than by raw scores, and this school falls within the typical range, neither among Illinois's top nor bottom 10%.
BeatsExpectations runs a per-state regression of proficiency on free/reduced-lunch share, then scores each school by residual. How this is calculated →
Schools most like Mark Twain Elementary School
Mark Twain Elementary School's state test result (25.5% proficient) is higher than 3 of the 5 schools below with a result.
| School | Students | Low-income | Proficient |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mark Twain Elementary School this school | 524 | 74.4% | 25.5% |
| Eugene Field Elementary School Wheeling | 613 | 75.0% | 22.4% |
| Century Oaks Elementary School Elgin | 542 | 74.0% | 24.5% |
| Cleveland Elementary School Chicago | 507 | 74.6% | 33.2% |
| Ontarioville Elementary School Hanover Park | 430 | 74.4% | 34.7% |
| Wegner Elementary School West Chicago | 384 | 71.1% | 24.4% |
Matched among Illinois elementary schools on enrollment, the share of students from low-income families (eligible for free or reduced-price lunch), and racial and ethnic makeup. Proficient is the average share of students meeting the state standard across all of the school's state tests in 2023-24 and 2024-25, the same combined score our test-score rankings use. Online schools and schools serving specialized populations are not matched.
Where Mark Twain Elementary School ranks
Among elementary schools| Measure | This school | In Illinois | In Cook County |
|---|---|---|---|
| State test proficiency ranked highest first | 25.5% | #1,433 of 1,925 | #473 of 760 |
| Math proficiency ranked highest first | 20.6% | #1,582 of 2,077 ▼ 211 | #527 of 829 ▼ 86 |
| Reading proficiency ranked highest first | 25.9% | #1,783 of 2,077 ▼ 120 | #682 of 829 ▼ 59 |
| Enrollment ranked largest first | 524 | #453 of 2,419 | #227 of 901 |
| Students per teacher ranked fewest first | 12.8:1 | #817 of 2,035 | #388 of 817 |
| Diversity index ranked most diverse first | 42.2% | #1,100 of 2,042 | #414 of 819 |
| Free and reduced lunch ranked highest share first | 74.4% | #646 of 2,132 | #415 of 804 |
| Enrollment change since 2017-18 ranked fastest growth first | +10.5% | #268 of 615 | #80 of 186 |
Ranked against other public elementary schools. Online schools are left out of every list, and test-score lists leave out schools that serve specialized populations. Each rank links to the full list. Arrows under a test-score rank show places moved since the prior test year, among schools tested both years.
4-year change
SY 2020-21 vs SY 2024-25Enrollment
524
+78 (+17%) vs 2020
+21% since 1990-91, when it was 432
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
Enrollment and staffing by year
| School year | Students | Teachers (FTE) | Students per teacher | Free and reduced lunch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | 524 | 41 | 12.8:1 | 74% (390) |
| 2023-24 | 447 | 38.6 | 11.6:1 | 78% (350) |
| 2022-23 | 420 | 37.6 | 11.2:1 | 68% (286) |
| 2020-21 | 446 | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 2017-18 | 474 | 31.4 | 15.1:1 | 66% (313) |
| 2015-16 | 566 | 34 | 16.6:1 | 78% (443) |
| 2010-11 | 565 | 37 | 15.3:1 | 71% (400) |
| 2000-01 | 507 | 28 | 18.1:1 | N/A |
| 1990-91 | 432 | 21 | 20.6:1 | N/A |
Source: NCES Common Core of Data. Rows are the federal collections on file for Mark Twain Elementary School.
Since 2017-18: students up 11% (474 to 524); teachers up 31% (31.4 to 41).
About Mark Twain Elementary School
In Wheeling, Illinois, part of Cook County, Mark Twain Elementary School is an elementary school. It reports enrollment of 524 students in pre-K through 5. The school is 38% larger than the average for elementary schools in Illinois.
The 12 schools in Wheeling CCSD 21 enroll 6,298 students altogether, Mark Twain Elementary School among them.
Hispanic students are 75% of those enrolled at Mark Twain Elementary School. The rest of enrollment is 11% White, 7% Asian, 5% Black, and 2% multiracial. Census estimates put the Hispanic share of Cook County's population at about 27%. On a 0 to 100 scale, the school's diversity index is 42, compared with 70 nationally.
There are about 12.8 students for every full-time-equivalent teacher at Mark Twain Elementary School, which has 41. Elementary schools in Illinois average 13.9:1, 1.1 more students per teacher than here. Free or reduced-price lunch eligibility at Mark Twain Elementary School is about 74%.
Based on student poverty, the model expects 28.5% at Mark Twain Elementary School; the school's average proficiency rate across its state test results is 25.5%.
In the wider Cook County area, median household income comes to about $83,498, roughly 43% of adults have a four-year degree or more, and about 10% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Cook County's 1,406 public schools enroll about 697,934 students and include Mark Twain Elementary School.
A public school about 0.4 miles away, Wheeling High School, is the closest to Mark Twain Elementary School. The count of other public schools within five miles is at least 8. Among its closest neighbors with test data, Mark Twain Elementary School is 5th of 8 on proficiency.
For locale, NCES codes Mark Twain Elementary School as Suburb: Large.
Enrollment rose 17% over 4 years, reaching 524 in 2024-25.
Mark Twain Elementary School has a community page on allk12 for topics such as pickup and drop-off, after-school programs, and teacher feedback. Teachers and staff are welcome to share updates too.
Cook County at a glance
View full county profilePopulation
5,182,090
Census ACS
Median income
$83,498
Household, ACS
Bachelor's+
43%
Adults 25+
Poverty rate
10%
Below federal line
Schools in county
1,406
697,934 students
Quick facts
Related schools
Other schools in Wheeling CCSD 21
- Cooper Middle SchoolMiddle · 732 students
- Jack London Middle SchoolMiddle · 628 students
- Oliver W Holmes Middle SchoolMiddle · 615 students
- Eugene Field Elementary SchoolElementary · 613 students
- Joyce Kilmer Elementary SchoolElementary · 590 students
- Booth Tarkington Elementary SchoolElementary · 540 students
Other schools in Wheeling
- Wheeling High SchoolHigh · 1,743 students
- Jack London Middle SchoolMiddle · 628 students
- Oliver W Holmes Middle SchoolMiddle · 615 students
- Eugene Field Elementary SchoolElementary · 613 students
- Booth Tarkington Elementary SchoolElementary · 540 students
- Walt Whitman Elementary SchoolElementary · 378 students
Other Mark Twain Elementary schools
30 other US public schools in 13 states are named Mark Twain Elementary. Mark Twain Elementary School is the 9th largest of the 31.
- Mark Twain Elementary SchoolNiles, IL · 489 students
- Mark Twain Elementary SchoolCharleston, IL · 221 students
- Mark Twain ElementaryRiverside, CA · 1,033 students
- Mark Twain Elementary SchoolALVIN, TX · 634 students
- Mark Twain ElementaryLawndale, CA · 585 students
Nearby schools
- Wheeling High School0.4 mi · 1,743
- Jack London Middle School0.8 mi · 628
- Oliver W Holmes Middle School1.0 mi · 615
- Eugene Field Elementary School1.0 mi · 613
- Booth Tarkington Elementary School1.0 mi · 540
- Walt Whitman Elementary School1.2 mi · 378
Frequently asked questions
About Mark Twain Elementary SchoolWhat is the total enrollment at Mark Twain Elementary School?
Mark Twain Elementary School enrolls approximately 524 students in grades PK-05.
What grades does Mark Twain Elementary School serve?
Mark Twain Elementary School serves grades PK-05.
How many teachers does Mark Twain Elementary School have?
Mark Twain Elementary School employs 41 FTE teachers, for a student-to-teacher ratio of 12.8:1.
What is the racial breakdown of students at Mark Twain Elementary School?
At Mark Twain Elementary School, the student body is approximately 11% White, 75% Hispanic, 5% Black, 7% Asian, 2% Two or more.
Is Mark Twain Elementary School public or private?
Mark Twain Elementary School is a public K-12 school, overseen by Wheeling CCSD 21.
Data sourceSchool profile facts are sourced from the NCES. Community content is posted by allk12 members.