Waukegan High School

As a high-enrollment 9-12 campus in Waukegan, Illinois, Waukegan High School teaches 4,186 students from grades 9 through 12, run under Waukegan CUSD 60. That puts it 402% larger than the typical public school in Illinois, which averages around 834 students.

Waukegan High School is one of 22 schools operated by Waukegan CUSD 60, a district that hosts 13,640 students overall.

In terms of who attends, Waukegan High School records that the student body is overwhelmingly Hispanic (83%). The remainder breaks down as 11% Black, 2% White. The wider county runs roughly 25% Hispanic, putting the school's mix meaningfully more Hispanic than the area baseline.

On the resource side, On paper, Waukegan High School has 323 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 13.0:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 13.8:1, putting Waukegan High School tighter than the state norm the norm. Roughly 64% of students at Waukegan High School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. By comparison, Lake County runs at roughly 54%, so the school's eligibility rate is meaningfully above the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Waukegan High School is in the bottom 10% of Illinois public schools. The BeatsExpectations model predicts schools with this FRL share to land around 34.6%; Waukegan High School posts 18.3%, -16.2 points below that line.

Across the wider county, census data for Lake County shows the typical household earns roughly $110,416 per year, 48% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 6%. Waukegan High School is one of 214 public schools in Lake County (combined enrollment of about 118,032 students).

Nearest neighbor: Robert E Abbott Middle School, around 0.2 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Waukegan High School. On composite proficiency, Waukegan High School comes 5th of 9 in the immediate cluster, below the nearby-schools average of 22.8%.

The campus sits in a suburban setting.

Trend over the last 7 years. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Waukegan High School has edged down 9%, going from 4,609 students in 2018 to 4,186 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio pulled in from 16.5:1 in 2018 to 13.0:1 today.

On the community side, recent activity here tends to focus on sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.