Taft Elementary School

Located at 1125 Oregon St, in Joliet, Illinois, Taft Elementary School is a mid-tier primary school that caters to 424 students (grades K through 5), operated by Joliet PSD 86.

Joliet PSD 86 comprises 20 schools with combined enrollment of 9,333 students; Taft Elementary School is among them.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Taft Elementary School logs that Hispanic students make up the majority at 66%. Other groups include 14% White, 13% Black, 6% multiracial. That is considerably more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 20%.

Looking at the economic backdrop, Staff filings list 21 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 19.9:1 students per teacher. That figure is higher than the state norm's 13.9:1 average. About 95% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. By comparison, Will County runs at roughly 44%, so the school's eligibility rate is higher than the surrounding baseline.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, Taft Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 16.9%, the actual is 28.6%, a residual of +11.7 points.

In the area at large, census data for Will County shows median household income runs about $109,984, 38% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 6%. Across Will County's 209 public schools (combined enrollment of about 113,008 students), Taft Elementary School is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Hufford Junior High School, around 0.5 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Taft Elementary School. Among the 9 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Taft Elementary School ranks 3rd on composite proficiency, ahead of the local average of 24.1%.

Geographically, the school is in a bedroom-community area.

Over the past 7-year window. Taft Elementary School's enrollment has showed little movement since 2018, when it stood at 429 (now 424). The Hispanic share of enrollment ticked up from 52% to 66% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio rose from 15.2:1 in 2018 to 19.9:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, posts here usually surface around science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.