Gold Coast Prep (formerly Chicago Grammar School)

CGS is a robust environment that focuses on challenging kids to think outside the box. I wish I had gone to school here, but sending my daughter here is the next best. We've been a part of the community for two years now and I couldn't be any happier with our experience. The teachers are very engaged and easily accessible to us parents, same as the administration. Visit and see for yourself!

This is an excellent school designed to educate children broadly so they become thinkers and rise to their full potential. The curriculum is classically based and rigorous. Children are challenged, and they achieve. Excellence is the goal for all the children and the curriculum is individualized as needed, but they are all encouraged to think, explore and advance. And they do. There are annual events such as a 2-day trip to Camp Tecumseh where students and teachers expand the education into an outdoor setting and a camp experience. The school has annual service projects everyone participates in and enjoys. The school is small but the benefit of this is that children across grades build friendships and allows for all-school performances, movie nights and the like. If you want your child to have a solid educational foundation which will allow them to be an engaged citizen, look no further.

This is our second year at CGS and if you are looking for a private school for your child, CGS should be on your must see list. CGS is nine years old and is graduating their first class of 8th graders in 2014. All should go to the best high schools in Chicago. Class sizes are small, none over 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 especially with math. 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 mattresses 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 those schools have "mandatory" giving and/or significant pressure to make large purchases at their fundraisers, so in the end we are about the same amount out of pocket. There is no other school in Chicago we would rather be at, my only wish is we had a High School :-)