The Illinois School Districts With the Most Teachers Per Student, Ranked

Which Illinois districts put the most teachers in front of the fewest students? We joined the federal NCES Common Core of Data staffing files with district enrollment for all 849 Illinois public school districts to find out. The full sortable dataset — every district's enrollment, school count, teacher FTEs, and pupil-teacher ratio — is free on our Illinois school districts data page, including a CSV download.

Here's what the data shows.

First, What This Number Means (and Doesn't)

Pupil-teacher ratio divides a district's enrollment by its full-time-equivalent licensed teachers. It is not class size: the teacher count includes reading specialists, special education teachers, interventionists, and other licensed staff who don't lead a homeroom. Actual classes typically run several students larger than the ratio.

But as a comparison tool across districts, it's one of the most honest staffing measures we have — and for job seekers, a low ratio is a direct signal: this district employs more teachers per student than its neighbors.

The Statewide Picture

  • The median Illinois district has a pupil-teacher ratio of about 12.8:1 — comfortably better staffed than the national public school average of roughly 15:1.
  • 89 districts run below 10:1. Most are small rural districts, where tiny grade levels make low ratios almost automatic.
  • The more interesting list is districts that keep ratios low at scale — which takes deliberate spending.

Top 10: Lowest Pupil-Teacher Ratios Among Districts With 1,000+ Students

| # | District | County | Pupil-Teacher | Enrollment | |---|----------|--------|--------------|------------| | 1 | La Grange SD 105 South | Cook | 9.3:1 | 1,194 | | 2 | Evanston CCSD 65 | Cook | 9.8:1 | 6,256 | | 3 | Lake Forest SD 67 | Lake | 9.9:1 | 1,657 | | 4 | Northbrook SD 28 | Cook | 10.0:1 | 1,850 | | 5 | Mannheim SD 83 | Cook | 10.2:1 | 2,341 | | 6 | Will County SD 92 | Will | 10.2:1 | 1,432 | | 7 | CCSD 62 (Des Plaines) | Cook | 10.2:1 | 4,475 | | 8 | Skokie SD 73-5 | Cook | 10.2:1 | 1,050 | | 9 | Northbrook/Glenview SD 30 | Cook | 10.2:1 | 1,247 | | 10 | Keeneyville SD 20 | DuPage | 10.3:1 | 1,326 |

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, 2024 staffing collection. Full methodology on the data page.

What Jumps Out

1. It's a Cook County story — but not only a wealthy one. Seven of the top ten are in Cook County. Lake Forest and Northbrook fit the expected profile of high-property-value suburbs. But Mannheim SD 83 and Des Plaines CCSD 62 serve substantially working-class, heavily bilingual communities — their staffing levels reflect deliberate investment in specialists and English-learner support, not just a big tax base.

2. Elementary-only districts dominate. Illinois's unusual three-tier structure (elementary districts, high school districts, and unified districts) means small elementary districts can concentrate resources on K-8 staffing. Every district in the top ten is an elementary district. If you want to work in a heavily staffed K-8 system, Illinois's district structure is genuinely an advantage — our Illinois districts guide explains how the tiers work.

3. Low ratio ≠ easy hiring market, in both directions. Well-staffed north suburban districts attract hundreds of applicants per opening. Meanwhile, districts with high ratios are often the ones hiring urgently — and many pay competitively to compensate. Use the ratio as information, not as a filter: a rising-enrollment district with a worsening ratio is a district about to post jobs.

4. Chicago is its own category. CPS District 299, with over 320,000 students, is nearly ten times the size of the next-largest district and hires on a scale no suburb matches — hundreds of elementary openings in a normal year, across every specialty.

Dig Into the Data Yourself

Every number in this post comes from our free dataset: all 849 Illinois districts, sortable by enrollment, schools, teachers, and ratio — with the CSV available for download and reuse. If you're comparing districts for a job search, pair it with the teaching job outlook and our interview question bank.

Know an Illinois district whose staffing story deserves a closer look? The data is public — go see how your district compares.