OKeeffe Elem School

OKeeffe Elem School is a K-5 school of sizable scale in Chicago, Illinois, operated by Chicago Public Schools Dist 299, serveing 572 students in grades pre-K through 8. That puts it 50% above the typical public school in Illinois, which averages around 381 students.

OKeeffe Elem School is one of 622 schools operated by Chicago Public Schools Dist 299, a district that serves 324,396 students overall.

On demographics, OKeeffe Elem School reports that the student body is overwhelmingly Black (86%). Other groups include 12% Hispanic. By comparison, Cook County as a whole is about 22% Black, so the school skews noticeably more Black than its surroundings.

On the resource side, On paper, OKeeffe Elem School has 44 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 13.2:1. The state averages around 13.9:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. Roughly 82% of students at OKeeffe Elem School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. That share is above Cook County's rate of about 66%.

With demographic context factored in, OKeeffe Elem School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 24.2%, the actual is 16.3%, a residual of -7.9 points.

Around the school, community-level numbers for Cook County indicate median household income runs about $83,498, 43% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 10%. In all, Cook County runs 1406 public schools (combined enrollment of about 697,934 students), of which OKeeffe Elem School is one.

Parkside Elem Community Academy is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.5 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around OKeeffe Elem School. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts OKeeffe Elem School at 8th of 9; the average score across the group is 22.5%.

The campus sits in an urban setting.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at OKeeffe Elem School has contracted 14%, going from 666 students in 2018 to 572 in 2025. Hispanic enrollment moved from 2% to 12% across the same window. Class-load math has fell: from 20.6:1 in 2018 to 13.2:1 in 2025.

On allk12, members of the OKeeffe Elem School community share and discuss classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Parents, students, alumni, and staff are welcome to weigh in.