CGS has been a part of our families community for two years now. I couldn't be more thrilled with…read morethe decision we made to send our daughter to the school. The teachers are exceptional, the administration receptive and accommodating, and the students are embraced and enthused with a desire to not only learn, but to dig deeper into subjects. I'd never heard of the school prior to a family mentioning it, but boy am I glad I did. My daughter has been given wonderful opportunities as a member of this community and I can't wait to see what's in store!

This is our second year at CGS and if you are looking for a private school for your child, CGS…read moreshould be on your must see list. CGS is nine years old and is graduating their first class of 8th graders in 2014. All will go to the best high schools in Chicago. Class sizes are small, all under 15, so your child will get more attention. That is what we feel we are paying for. From the first grade, your child will have more than one teacher who is teaching their specialty. Another plus. Our headmaster, Mr. Jackson comes from a special needs background, so it is an excellent choice if your child is smart, but has some challenges. Our daughter she needs a lot of repetition. With the small class sizes, she is getting that at CGS. We had her tested this summer and discovered that even though she was in the "lower" groups for reading and math, she is reading more than two grades above level and her math was also above grade level after only one year at the school. The fact a child reading over two grades above grade level was in the lower group, also speaks about the student quality. If you want your child challenged, this is the place. If you want to go to work and brag how your child is a straight A student and the smartest in their class. Good luck at CGS. Now to why this school is not for you. We are in an office building. If looks matter, go to British, Cook or Parker with their beautiful campuses. Sports, we do not have a volleyball or basketball team. This apparently is a big deal to many in Chicago at the elementary level and why some parents do not choose CGS or use as an excuse to leave. At CGS, the parents make sports happen, We have the only traveling snow sports club with its own ski school at any school in Chicago, a Taekwondo Grand Master teaching in our after school program as well as weekly yoga and swim club in our after school program. Other student are excelling in hockey, figure skating and golf outside of school. So we are a very sports conscious and active school. There is a music school upstairs that will pick up your child from after school for their lessons. How great is that. We are a private, for profit school. What does that mean. To me, the best part of all, no giving fund or annoying fundraisers. Both my spouse and I are self employed and have work commitments 7 days a week. We do not have the time to sell chocolate or make things for an auction like was expected at our daughter's former school. Your tuition might seem higher than your friends at FXW, Old St. Mary's or Urban Prairie, but they have "mandatory" giving and/or significant pressure to make large purchases at their fundraisers, so in the end we are about the same. There is no other school in Chicago we would rather be at, my only wish is we had a High School :-)

This is an amazing school in the heart of Chicago. The new building opened about a year and half…read moreago and it is really state of the art. The building may be new but this school has a lot of history in the city. There is a beautiful green space on the roof of the school. It is great to go up here and enjoy the urban jungle which is our city. There is also a fun play area for the students including nets overhead...we would not want a basketball going over the side and hitting someone in the head 3 stories below. Ouch!!! The staff here is great. They truly care about the students. The IB program here is also really great too. I wish I could go back to grade school and attend here. I also love the front office and the security guards too. Everyone here is so friendly and it makes the experience of school fun. I also must throw out some congrats to Kenneth Staral the school principal. He cares so much about education and the well being of all of the students. If it was not for him, I am sure that this school would not be this successful. He is a blessing for putting together such a great education plan for the students. In the warmer months, there is a guy that lives in the high rise, over the school on Oak, that will play his bag pipes on the top floor of his balcony. At first, I thought I was in some movie with hidden cameras but then realized this guy was up there practicing. So if you are ever walking around the school and you hear the music just look up and you will see this guy. I do get a tear in my eye when he starts playing "Danny Boy"! My little one will start to dance...he has even waved at us from 20 stories above. Fun Fact: The school is named after the first mayor of Chicago. Mr Ogden was involved in real estate, he also was involved with canals too. In fact, his company cut out the canal that made Goose Island in Chicago. He later moved on to the railroads and was president of Union Pacific. He built a railroad to Wisconsin to bring grain to Chicago and also a railroad out West too. He was on the cutting edge of progress and growing our nation. The parents, students, faculty and staff make the learning experience here at Ogden great and I look forward to many more years here.

When I was a kid, I had aced the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Did you know you could ace them?…read moreNeither did I. What I mean by that is that I scored a straight 99th percentile on every single one of my Iowa Tests and got a strange invitation in the mail. The invitation was from pre-International Baccalaureate Program to take an exam and potentially join Abraham Lincoln Elementary or William B. Ogden Elementary. Little did I know, this little invitation would change the rest of my life. At the exam, I met a friend that had moved away in third grade and we laughed wondering why we were both here. We both talked and said that Ogden School sounded better than Lincoln Elementary School, so that is what we decided. After taking their exam, I also had an interview. I was informed that I had scored the fifth best in the city and that I could pick Ogden or Lincoln. Seeing as my friend and I agreed on Odgen, Ogden it was. I missed my first day of school because the school bus did not show up until 9 in the morning, but by then I had already walked back to Volta Elementary as I did not know what to do. Over the years the bus was pretty consistent, except for the day that I missed it and decided to take the train downtown to school. Being eleven years old, sometimes you just don't know where you're going. I got off the train and started walking and then realized that I had no idea where I was. I walked into a police station and yelled, "Help, I need help!" After explaining that I was lost and late for school two cops drove me six blocks to school and apologized for swearing like pirates. I arrived to the playground in the back of a cop car and the kids thought that I had been arrested! With regard to the curriculum, it was a bar up from the Gifted Program that I had been in Volta Elementary and the adjustments took awhile because whereas before I was able to dominate, I struggled with the new social situation and had to take extra time to regain my bearings. By 7th grade, I was doing well in school again and liked French class the best since it was the most interesting. I still speak French today, which serves as a testament of the merits of Ogden's rigorous curriculum. At Ogden, you also learn to deal with kids coming from the deep south side and kids who live right around the corner on the Gold Coast. The pre-IB Program at Ogden set me up well for my future IB entry exams at Lincoln Park High School. The French curriculum is a must have for kids who will want to be speaking French in the future and is a cheaper alternative than sending kids out for private lessons. I also learned the ability to respect and tolerate the diversity of races and socioeconomic statuses of the various Chicagoans that will be found at this school. If you ever wonder who William B. Ogden was, he was the first mayor of Chicago. He worked extensively with land developers and reached the epic agreement that guarantees the land on our lakefront as public parks now and forever. Well forever until the city decides to lease it out for the next quick buck.

Serious safety issues - I wish we could wind back the clock and avoid this place - there are just…read moretoo many serious issues and not enough resources to provide a safe environment for children.

Great school with awesome teachers. Our kids love to go to the shool and their teachers are very…read moreinvolved and care a lot. So does the principal! It's the public & no-selective elementary school in Chicago with the best test scores, in a upscale neighbourhood with often overachieving and very educated parents. So, yes the school cares about the test scores ... so do most parents, but our kids never felt any pressure to perform, our daughter thinks it's rather stimulating. They also have a special needs class for kids with learning desabilities.

My child goes to Meijer and I can't believe how they treat students that are not in their favored…read moreprograms and or favored in general my child got in trouble for trying to stand up to somebody who did something wrong and protect the girl that was behind it and or the victim and she got sent away from her class because apparently it was a rumor even though multiple kids hadn't seen it and they should have taken it more seriously but the point it's I can't believe they're protecting a boy that SA girl maybe they should take more precautions of how to retreat the situation instead of just saying as a rumor and sweeping it under the rug

Even though this school claims to be inclusive it really isn't. It's very exclusive for the parents…read moreof the community who are majority wyt/wealthy and not for kids outside of the community who come here for the "Montessori" program. Which I wish parents really got a chance to observe a real Montessori class setting as they will VERY quickly realize Mayer isn't a true Montessori school as it claims, no way it can be when it's a PUBLIC school. We had our kids in Montessori before moving to Chicago and this is is NOT what it claims to be. A lot of the teachers here need REAL cultural awareness and also confidentiality training. There is a guard that works here that definitely needs some people's skills she really lacks interpersonal skills. A few of us were in the building and over heard how disrespectful she is to the students , yelling and yelling g them to "shut up" when addressing them, unbelievable really that they would have someone like that around kids. The LSC has the principal controlled and we believe she even fears them, which is sad because she's cool and great things could happen here. It's shocking that in a school with so much $ students have such limited access to quality music, art and language programs - and how there isn't much visible pride in having a "multicultural" school. All in all Mayer is pretty lame considering everything it claims to be, just another public school. Needless to say we're very excited to be leaving and going to La Salle where they are welcoming from the moment you walk in. Anyone looking at Mayer thinking quality and wholesomeness , keep looking.

I am so upset with the school right now. this school may be "good" but, recently I took my child…read moreto this school and they expected him to act like he was in a palace or something. They made him wear uniforms that are so uncomfortable. And if you take off your tie, you get detention. Even worse is when you go home, you can't take off your tie until you are inside. HEAR ME OUT, THEY LITERALLY HIRE PEOPLE TO GO ON THE BUSES AND MONITOR STUDENTS TO MAKE SURE THEY DON'T TAKE OFF THEIR TIE. This school is the absolute worst. I would not dare take him here again.

I went to Skinner from kindergarten until 8th grade. I graduated twice from this school and…read morewouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else during my grammar school years. Not only did I have amazing teachers, faculty, and friends; it would such a great school. The faculty did the best they could to make the students' experience different and I think they definitely accomplished that. I would say, and I'm sure most of the people that I graduated with, would say that we absolutely loved our time at this school and would recommend it to anyone out there looking for an amazing school with amazing people teaching their children. Sidenote: I went to the school before this new one was built, but I've been back to visit and this is definitely an accurate picture of what the building looks like. It's beautiful on the inside and out.

My kids don't go to Latin school but they played many basketball games with the Romans. The school…read moreis well located and beautiful. There is a lot of art on the walls. I'm sure that kids get good education in this school. This review is about behavior of parents of the Romans and the Romans Coach in season 2025/26. They put so much pressure on kids. One of the siblings of the Romans was cheering with mean words. The kid would position itself next to the hoop, so that only the players can hear. Unbelievable. One of the fathers was yelling at his kid because they were loosing. I felt so sorry for those kids, even though they are probably similar to their sickly ambitious parents. The Romans Coach is a nice looking woman, but unfortunately in traveling team she is well known to be mean toward the girls. She was so annoying during the games, she was too hard on her team, with an attitude of cruelty toward opposite team. Again - unbelievable. This is expensive school and kids in Latin school will be successful, but in the background of their success, there will be a lot of therapy, substance abuse, hidden inappropriate sexual behavior and on the top of that, life long competitive cruelty that was built in them in such a young age. Such a pity.

I started at Latin in Jr. Kindergarten and went all the way through my senior year of high school…read more At the time I didn't realize how lucky I was to have had parents that insisted that I have the best education available; Latin is absolutely that. I was learning things in my freshman and sophomore year of high school that many people didn't study until college. I made life-long friends there and had a wonderful grade school, middle school, and upper school experience.

I attended this school 2nd grade through 8th grade, 1998 to 2004. The principals were authoritarian…read moreand modeled the school's organization on British boarding schools for some reason. In middle school, our math teacher Mrs. DiIorio gave an official, approved lecture to my class on why slavery was actually a good thing for enslaved Africans. I'm serious. She screamed at us constantly. Her approach was based in control, verbal abuse, and coercion. She led the class in bullying one of my friends who had organizational difficulties due to ADHD. In social studies, we had to memorize every single American Civil War date yet barely touched world geography. Another social studies teacher told us he supported the use of the nuclear bomb in WWII Japan and suggested that he opposed abortion. Were there decent teachers? Yes, the art and music programs were pretty good and the teachers were kind. But I hope the white supremacist, right-wing ideology and abusive tactics have gone to the wayside at this school. Something was very off at this place. I'm still unpacking trauma from the constant screaming of Mrs. DiIorio and others.

Catherine Cook School is a small private grammar school in Old Town on Schiller Pl. Over the years…read moreit has grown to take over the loft building and to buy the lot and build the building next door. There is a great community of parents involved. My closest friends to this day are Catherine Cook Moms.The strong academic foundation at CCS made high school a smooth experience for my son and now he's doing well as a Loyola freshman. He started in pre-kindergarten and went all the way through. The tuition is far below that of Francis Parker or Latin. I highly recommend Catherine Cook for a strong phonics-based reading program and solid accredited teaching protocols and an excellent art department.

We love ICSJ. Our son joined the school in Kindergarten and we've had a great experience since day…read more1. The teachers truly care and are invested in the whole child. Our son is challenged and thriving academically, as well as nurtured emotionally. The co teaching model is amazing and special. 2 certified teachers in a class of 24 students max. They also have learning specialists that are able to help children if they need a little extra assistance but they do it in a fun way so the kids do not view as a negative. In fact my son loved his small group time with the reading specialist. We love that they have Spanish twice a week, as well as very strong academics across the usual subjects including STEM. We love their student lead conferences because it teaches students public speaking skills in front of their parents in which they can present what they have been working on. After the "presentation" then the parents have opportunity to speak to teachers in the more traditional private format. We are not religious and feel that the religious aspect of the school is not overwhelming but rather teaches good morals and ethics. The community is amazing! It really is a small school in a big city with a family feel. The teachers are also very responsive when parents reach out. They have before & after school care. We often sign up for enrichment classes after school which have been great. They have ranged from stem, yoga and chess. Many graduates continue high school at high ranked Catholic schools like St Ignatius AND the #1 ranked high school in Illinois Walter Payton. We originally looked at Lincoln Elementary (CPS), St Clements, Catherine Cook and FXW but chose ICSJ for the reasons above. It may not have the big name factor of some other schools but I would definitely check out this hidden gem because it's an incredible school!

From the owner: Immaculate Conception – St. Joseph School is a premier Catholic elementary school on Chicago's near…read morenorth side, serving over 300 students from 28 different zip codes. Our unique co-teaching model puts 2 certified teachers in every classroom through 3rd grade, giving students authentic differentiation in learning. With student support teams consisting of 2 learning specialists and 1 counselor at each of our two campuses (PreK3 - 3rd grade at 1431 N. North Park and 4th-8th at 363 W. Hill Street), a full-time school nurse, and Spanish, PE, Music, Art, STEM and Religion at all grade levels, in addition to our primary subjects taught, our focus is on developing each child to his or her fullest potential. Our students have tested in the top 85% for math and reading, at every grade level tested (K-8th) within the state of Illinois, for the last 3 years and go on to the best high schools in Chicago and beyond. Come join ICSJ...a Family of Families!

I love this school! Def recommend. Go Jags!! a bunch of nice welcoming students and amazing…read moreteachers!

Have 3 kids here. Amazing school with 2 track religion curriculum. Catholic and world religion…read more Rigorous academic curriculum with emphasis on social emotional learning/development. Quite a bit of volunteering as well to help keep the kids grounded and caring about the world around them. A rare combination of an independent school with a catholic underpinning where other religions are not just welcomed but celebrated. I didn't have that exposure until I was in college. Glad I can expose my kids to this diversity early on. And did I mention they are crushing all their academic/standardised tests!!!

I wouldn't recommend this school to my worst enemy the teachers are supportive but the admin isn't…read more This school causes depression and severe stress and trauma. Admin only supports select students and cares about school image over student well being. The admin neglects victims and targets particular students (typically new) with use of manipulation. I have been manipulated by members of admin personally and only given access to a biased counselor. This school will break your kid to the lowest mental stability they will ever be at to preserve school identity+ aid select students. Multiple bad experiences, I would never recommend this school to anyone (social wise).

Skinner North Classical is a selective enrollment school. As stated on the website, "The mission…read moreof Skinner North Classical School is to provide rigorous, differentiated instruction to all students. With a focus on teaching the whole child in an academically advanced environment, they work to establish norms of highly successful and socially-motivated individuals in a community that promotes collaboration, leadership, and celebrates the diversity of the students, families, and staff. In addition to the core subjects, students take classes in Spanish, Art, and Music. Skinner North focuses on the social emotional learning (SEL), which is a very important factor in how students learn to function in the world. There are a number of programs before and after school taught by the teachers and others. Teachers care about the students and spend a lot of extra time developing programs to use with their students. North Family members are encouraged to participate in the monthly social events throughout the year. Finally, many of the students are not from the immediate area and some of the students are bused to Skinner North. In the morning and at the end of the day the buses are lined up waiting for their students. For parents that are interested Skinner North Classical School for their child, they can attend one of many open houses for prospective families. I gave Skinner North Classical 4.5 stars, but since there is not a half star I have raised my rating up to 5 stars. The half a star deduction is because of the busing, in bad weather buses can be late coming or going which would cause children to spend more time on the bus, and would cut into the children's instructional time. Skinner North does have fantastic programs and a superior teaching staff that is dedicated to working with every student using differentiated instruction to help the students succeed.