Riverdale School

Riverdale School is an elementary campus of very small scale in Riverdale, Illinois, run under Dolton SD 148, works with 137 students in grades K through 4. That puts it 64% smaller than the typical public school in Illinois, which averages around 381 students.

Dolton SD 148 runs 10 schools in total, collectively educating 2,077 students. Riverdale School is one of those campuses.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Riverdale School lists that nearly all students (93%) are Black. Beyond that, the school shows 4% Hispanic, 2% multiracial. That is considerably more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 22%.

Looking at the economic backdrop, The school reports having 12 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 11.8:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 13.9:1 average. About 99% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. Set against Cook County (around 66%), the school's rate is meaningfully above typical.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Riverdale School ranks in the top 10% of Illinois public schools. The BeatsExpectations model, a per-state regression of composite proficiency on FRL share, predicts schools with this student profile to land around 14.2%; Riverdale School posts 28.9%, +14.7 points above that line.

Zooming out to the county, the surrounding county (Cook County) logs that median household earnings sit near $83,498, roughly 43% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 10%. In all, Cook County runs 1406 public schools (combined enrollment of about 697,934 students), of which Riverdale School is one.

Nearest neighbor: Park Elementary School, around 0.2 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Riverdale School. On composite proficiency, Riverdale School comes 2nd of 8 in the immediate cluster, ahead of the nearby-schools average of 19.1%.

Riverdale School operates from an outer-ring location.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count decreased 10%: 152 students in 2018 compared to 137 in 2025. The Black share of enrollment shrank from 98% to 93% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio widened from 8.9:1 in 2018 to 11.8:1 today.

Inside the community feed, posts here usually surface around pickup logistics, teacher feedback, and after-school programs. Members of the school community can share what they know.