Prairie Oak School

Prairie Oak School operates as a big primary school in Berwyn, Illinois, part of Berwyn North SD 98. Current enrollment sits at 698 students spanning grades pre-K through 5. That puts it 83% bigger than the typical public school in Illinois, which averages around 381 students.

Across the 4 schools in Berwyn North SD 98 (2,434 students total), Prairie Oak School accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

On demographics, Prairie Oak School lists that 77% of the student body identifies as Hispanic. Other groups include 14% Black, 6% White, 2% multiracial. That is visibly more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 27%.

In terms of school funding signals, Prairie Oak School lists 52 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 13.5:1. The state averages about 13.9:1, putting this campus right in line with peers. About 72% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator.

After controlling for student poverty, Prairie Oak School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 29.9%, the actual is 39.8%, a residual of +9.9 points.

Zooming out to the county, ACS estimates for Cook County put the typical household earns roughly $83,498 per year, 43% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and roughly 10% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Prairie Oak School is one of 1406 public schools in Cook County (combined enrollment of about 697,934 students).

Nearest neighbor: Jefferson Elem School, around 0.4 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Prairie Oak School. On composite proficiency, Prairie Oak School comes 5th of 8 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 44.4%.

The school occupies a bedroom-community site.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Prairie Oak School has ticked down 12%, going from 795 students in 2018 to 698 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 16.0:1 in 2018 to 13.5:1 today.

On the community side, posts here usually surface around enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. Members of the school community can share what they know.