Tarkington Elem School

As a big elementary school in Chicago, Illinois, Tarkington Elem School instructs 791 students from grades pre-K through 8, overseen by Chicago Public Schools Dist 299. By comparison, Illinois's public schools average about 381 students each, so Tarkington Elem School sits 108% bigger than that benchmark.

Within Chicago Public Schools Dist 299, which oversees 622 schools and 324,396 students, Tarkington Elem School is one campus in the system.

Demographically, Tarkington Elem School shows that the student body is overwhelmingly Hispanic (83%). Beyond that, the school reports 16% Black. By comparison, Cook County as a whole is about 27% Hispanic, so the school skews meaningfully more Hispanic than its surroundings.

Looking at the economic backdrop, The school lists 58 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 13.6:1. That tracks the state average closely. About 93% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. By comparison, Cook County runs at roughly 66%, so the school's eligibility rate is meaningfully above the surrounding baseline.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, Tarkington Elem School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 17.8%, the actual is 26.6%, a residual of +8.8 points.

Around the school, 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 the poverty rate sits near 10%. Across Cook County's 1406 public schools (combined enrollment of about 697,934 students), Tarkington Elem School is one campus in the mix.

Hurley Elem School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.7 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Tarkington Elem School comes 3rd of 9 in the immediate cluster, above the nearby-schools average of 21.6%.

The school occupies a metropolitan site.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Tarkington Elem School has declined 21%, going from 999 students in 2018 to 791 in 2025. Over the same period, the Black share edged down from 20% to 16%. The student-to-teacher ratio pulled in from 20.3:1 in 2018 to 13.6:1 today.

On this page, members of the Tarkington Elem School community share and discuss enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. The community welcomes input from current and former families.