Ray Elem School

Ray Elem School is a high-enrollment elementary-level community in Chicago, Illinois, run under Chicago Public Schools Dist 299. The school instructs 613 students in grades pre-K through 8. That puts it 61% above the typical public school in Illinois, which averages around 381 students.

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

In terms of who attends, Ray Elem School shows that the largest single group is Black, at 59% of enrollment; the rest reads as 18% Hispanic, 13% White, 5% Asian, 4% multiracial. That is considerably more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 22%.

On the resource side, The school reports having 42 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 14.8:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 13.9:1, putting Ray Elem School higher than the state norm the norm. An estimated 45% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. Set against Cook County (around 66%), the school's rate is meaningfully below typical.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Ray Elem School falls in the UNDERPERFORMING tier of the BeatsExpectations residual. Given its student profile, a typical campus would land near 45.6%; this one comes in at 30.1%, -15.5 points off the demographic line.

In the area at large, community-level numbers for Cook County indicate median household earnings sit near $83,498, about 43% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, 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 Ray Elem School is one.

The closest other public school is Bret Harte Elem School, roughly 0.4 miles away. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. Among the 9 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Ray Elem School ranks 4th on composite proficiency, ahead of the local average of 27.0%.

The school occupies a metropolitan site.

Five-year trend. Ray Elem School's enrollment has fell 16% since 2018, when it stood at 731 (now 613). The Hispanic share of enrollment grew from 9% to 18% over that span. Class-load math has fell: from 18.1:1 in 2018 to 14.8:1 in 2025.

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