Thomas Paine Elem School

Thomas Paine Elem School, a mid-sized primary school in Urbana, Illinois, one of the schools within Urbana SD 116, teaches 324 students, covering grades K through 5.

Urbana SD 116 comprises 9 schools with combined enrollment of 4,658 students; Thomas Paine Elem School is among them.

In terms of who attends, Thomas Paine Elem School logs that 45% of students identify as Black, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups. Beyond that, the school lists 27% White, 15% multiracial, 8% Hispanic, 4% Asian. The wider county runs roughly 14% Black, putting the school's mix noticeably more Black than the area baseline.

On the income-and-resources front, Staff filings list 35 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 9.3:1 students per teacher. The state averages around 13.9:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. An estimated 72% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. Set against Champaign County (around 53%), the school's rate is somewhat above typical.

After controlling for student poverty, Thomas Paine Elem School is in the bottom 10% of Illinois public schools. The BeatsExpectations model predicts schools with this FRL share to land around 30.0%; Thomas Paine Elem School posts 14.5%, -15.5 points below that line.

Around the school, census data for Champaign County shows median household earnings sit near $63,683, 46% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and roughly 7% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Thomas Paine Elem School is one of 66 public schools in Champaign County (combined enrollment of about 25,919 students).

The closest other public school is Dr Preston L Williams Jr Elem Sch, roughly 0.7 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 5 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Thomas Paine Elem School ranks 4th on composite proficiency, below the local average of 22.6%.

The campus sits in an urban setting.

Over the past 7-year window. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Thomas Paine Elem School has remained close to its prior level, going from 328 students in 2018 to 324 in 2025. Over the same period, the White share contracted from 43% to 27%. The student-to-teacher ratio pulled in from 13.1:1 in 2018 to 9.3:1 today.

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