Thomas Kelly College Preparatory

Thomas Kelly College Preparatory is one of the sprawling high schools in Chicago, Illinois, run under Chicago Public Schools Dist 299, with 1,762 students on its rolls from grades 9 through 12. Enrollment runs roughly 111% larger than the state mean of about 834.

Chicago Public Schools Dist 299 comprises 622 schools with combined enrollment of 324,396 students; Thomas Kelly College Preparatory is among them.

In terms of who attends, Thomas Kelly College Preparatory shows that nearly all students (86%) are Hispanic; the rest comes out to 10% Asian, 2% Black. That is visibly more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 27%.

Looking at the economic backdrop, The school reports having 124 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 14.3:1. That tracks the state average closely. An estimated 94% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. By comparison, Cook County runs at roughly 66%, so the school's eligibility rate is above the surrounding baseline.

After controlling for student poverty, Thomas Kelly College Preparatory performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 17.3%, the actual is 13.6%, a residual of -3.6 points.

Around the school, 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%. Thomas Kelly College Preparatory is one of 1406 public schools in Cook County (combined enrollment of about 697,934 students).

Nearest neighbor: Shields Elem School, around 0.3 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Thomas Kelly College Preparatory. Among the 9 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Thomas Kelly College Preparatory ranks 8th on composite proficiency, behind the local average of 24.4%.

Thomas Kelly College Preparatory operates from a high-density location.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count contracted 6%: 1,881 students in 2018 compared to 1,762 in 2025. Over the same period, the Hispanic share expanded from 81% to 86%. Class-load math has tightened: from 19.2:1 in 2018 to 14.3:1 in 2025.

Inside the community feed, recent activity here tends to focus on fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.