Willard Elem School

Willard Elem School is an elementary-level community of moderately sized scale in Evanston, Illinois, one of the schools within Evanston CCSD 65, educateing 355 students in grades K through 5.

Within Evanston CCSD 65, which oversees 16 schools and 6,136 students, Willard Elem School is one campus in the system.

Demographically, Willard Elem School logs that the largest single group is White, at 59% of enrollment. The remainder comes out to 20% Hispanic, 12% Black, 6% multiracial, 3% Asian. By comparison, Cook County as a whole is about 44% White, so the school skews considerably more White than its surroundings.

On the resource side, Willard Elem School logs 32 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 11.2:1. The state averages around 13.9:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. Around 23% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. By comparison, Cook County runs at roughly 66%, so the school's eligibility rate is lower than the surrounding baseline.

After controlling for student poverty, Willard Elem School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 58.5%, the actual is 60.1%, a residual of +1.6 points.

In the surrounding community, the surrounding county (Cook County) shows that the typical household earns roughly $83,498 per year, about 43% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and the poverty rate sits near 10%. Willard Elem School is one of 1406 public schools in Cook County (combined enrollment of about 697,934 students).

Nearest neighbor: McKenzie Elem School, around 0.6 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Willard Elem School at 2nd of 6; the average score across the group is 58.8%.

The campus sits in an urban setting.

Looking at the recent track record. Willard Elem School's enrollment has edged down 30% since 2018, when it stood at 509 (now 355). Black enrollment moved from 7% to 12% across the same window. Class-load math has fell: from 14.1:1 in 2018 to 11.2:1 in 2025.

On this page, posts here usually surface around fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.