WL West Loop Vibe

West Loop · Schools

Schools in the West Loop, Chicago.

The West Loop has 2 Chicago Public Schools inside its borders: Whitney M. Young Magnet High School (7-12, citywide selective enrollment) and Skinner West Elementary School (PK-8, with both a neighborhood attendance area and a selective classical program). Five more CPS schools sit just outside the neighborhood and serve many West Loop addresses. Your assigned neighborhood school depends on your address — use CPS's official school finder for the definitive answer.

Quick facts

CPS schools inside WL
2
Elementary / K-8
1
High school
1
With attendance boundary
1
Selective-enrollment only
1
Total student enrollment
3,343
School year
School Year 2024-2025
Data refreshed
2026-05-17

On the map

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Prefer a text list? Each school's section below has its address, grade range, and link to the official CPS profile.

Whitney M. Young Magnet High School

High school · Grades 7-12 · 211 S Laflin St, Chicago 60607

Schools that offer a rigorous curriculum with mainly honors and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Acceptance based on application and entrance exam.

School website ↗ · CPS profile ↗ · Illinois Report Card ↗ · More on Whitney M. Young Magnet High School →

Skinner West Elementary School

Elementary school · Grades PK,K-8 · 1260 W Adams St, Chicago 60607

Provides a challenging liberal arts curriculum for students with high academic potential.

School website ↗ · CPS profile ↗ · Illinois Report Card ↗ · More on Skinner West Elementary School →

Just outside the West Loop

These CPS schools sit immediately outside the West Loop's borders but serve many West Loop addresses depending on attendance boundary or selective-enrollment match. Each links to its official CPS profile; use the school finder at cps.edu to confirm assignment for a specific address.

Private and parochial options

The City's open-data dataset for schools is CPS-only. The most prominent private/parochial school inside the West Loop is Francis Xavier Warde School — Old St. Patrick's Campus (120 S Desplaines), a Catholic K-8 school affiliated with Old St. Patrick's parish. Other private and parochial options serving West Loop families exist but are not enumerated here because there is no equivalent public dataset to cite — for those, contact each school directly.

Frequently asked questions

Which CPS schools are in the West Loop?
2 CPS schools sit inside the West Loop neighborhood: Whitney M. Young Magnet High School and Skinner West Elementary School. Five more — Brown STEM, Chicago World Language Academy, Galileo, STEM Magnet, and Noble Bulls — sit just outside the neighborhood's borders and serve many West Loop addresses.
How do I find out which school my address is assigned to?
Use the official CPS school finder at cps.edu/schools. Enter your address and it returns your assigned neighborhood elementary and high school. Schools with selective-enrollment programs (Whitney M. Young, Skinner West's classical program) require a separate application through GoCPS, regardless of where you live.
What is the SQRP rating?
School Quality Rating Policy (SQRP) was the Chicago Board of Education's annual accountability tool. As of SY2024-2025 the policy is paused; the City's school dataset shows "Inability to Rate" for every school. The active accountability label is the `rating_status` field — "Good Standing" for most West Loop area schools. For more detailed academic performance data, see the Illinois Report Card link on each school's page.
How do selective enrollment magnet schools work?
Whitney M. Young Magnet High School (7-12) and Skinner West's classical program admit students based on application + entrance exam, regardless of where they live in Chicago. Applications run through GoCPS during the fall of the year before enrollment. Skinner West also has a neighborhood attendance boundary for non-classical students living nearby.
What about private and parochial schools?
This page covers Chicago Public Schools only — the City's open-data dataset for schools is CPS-only. Private and parochial schools in the West Loop area (including Catholic schools tied to Old St. Patrick's and Holy Trinity) are not enumerated here. For private-school enrollment, contact the schools directly.
When was this data last refreshed?
School Year 2024-2025; pulled from the City of Chicago Open Data Portal on 2026-05-17. The pipeline runs weekly; if CPS publishes an updated school-year profile the data will refresh automatically.

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