Compiled from official source data by PlainSchools.
6 public K-12 schools in Machesney Park from NCES Common Core of Data: enrollment, grade span, demographics, and Civil Rights Data Collection statistics for every active campus.
According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Machesney Park has more public-school enrollment than 38% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Harlem High School enrolls 52.2% of Machesney Park's public-school students. That is enough concentration for one institution to pull the citywide enrollment, staffing, and Resource Index averages toward its own profile. The smaller campuses below should therefore be compared directly rather than inferred from the headline mean; their grade configurations and program footprints can be materially different even inside the same district.
The school portfolio is elementary-weighted
4 of Machesney Park's 6 listed schools are elementary campuses. That composition means citywide enrollment and staffing averages are influenced more by early-grade operating patterns than by the city's 0 middle and 1 high-school records. Families comparing later grades should rely on those individual rows rather than the all-school mean.
Campus spread matters more than the city mean
The 30-point gap between Olson Park Elem School and Donald C Parker Early Educ Center shows the range hidden by Machesney Park's average Resource Investment Index. The city figure is useful for national placement, but families ultimately choose among campuses with different grade spans, enrollment, district affiliations, and reported support fields. Start with schools serving the relevant grade level, then compare the index components rather than assuming the city average describes any one classroom.
City enrollment
Top 62%
School count
Top 79%
Resource Index average
41st percentile
Teacher staffing
66th percentile
Harlem High School accounts for 52.2% of all Machesney Park public-school enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Machesney Park a distant remainder — means Machesney Park-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the largest entity. Grade level: High. The share measures enrollment concentration only; it does not establish how districts allocate programs, capital, or staff. Because it contains a majority of the affected population, enrollment-weighted aggregates will sit closer to this entity's reported fields than to those of smaller peers; an unweighted entity count answers a different question.
Machesney Park school enrollment varies 8.1× across entities
Machesney Park school enrollment ranges from 232 students (lowest) to 1,884 students (highest), a spread of 1,652 students. That relatively narrow ratio reflects an unusually homogeneous school portfolio for a city this size. Per-school staffing and program breadth can differ sharply at opposite ends of that enrollment range, so the city average should not be treated as a typical campus.
Machesney Park operates one school district — a single-district system
Machesney Park's listed schools share one district boundary, budget authority, and reporting chain. That makes citywide and districtwide governance easier to compare, but it does not make individual campuses uniform: grade configuration, staffing, programs, and student need can still vary materially within the same school district.
Machesney Park student-teacher ratio is 14.1:1 — near the typical range (US average ~15.7) — citywide staffing is neither unusually lean nor unusually crowded by this measure
student-teacher ratio is the simplest comparative metric but it does not capture the full picture: the ratio counts FTE classroom teachers against total enrollment, push-in specialists, English-language aides, special-education co-teachers, and counselors are not included in most reporting Variation between sub-units within Machesney Park is typically wider than the Machesney Park-aggregate figure suggests.
Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Machesney Park
Ranked by the Simpson student-body diversity index (0-100) from NCES race and ethnicity data, where higher means a more evenly mixed student body. It measures mix, not quality.
What do families ask about schools in Machesney Park?
Which Machesney Park school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼
Olson Park Elem School has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Machesney Park schools in this federal-data comparison at 54/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
How many schools are in Machesney Park, IL? ▼
Machesney Park has 6 public schools with a total enrollment of 3,610 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 14.1:1.
Data from NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) 2024-25 and Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) 2021-22. The Resource Investment Index uses reported student-teacher ratio,
counselor access, gifted programs, and attendance; it is not an academic rating. Cities must include at least five schools to be listed. This public-data comparison is for informational purposes:
verify current enrollment, attendance boundaries, and programs with the school district before acting. See the guide to understanding NCES data.
