Seventeen student-athletes from Kirby School District 140 competed at the 2026 Special Olympics Track & Field Spring Games at Busey Bank Field – Joliet Memorial Stadium on April 25 and 26. The athletes earned six gold medals, eight silver medals, six bronze medals, three fourth-place ribbons, one fifth-place ribbon, one sixth-place ribbon, one seventh-place ribbon, and one eighth-place ribbon.
All students who won gold medals have qualified for the Special Olympics State Games scheduled for June 12–14 at Illinois State University. The event recognizes the achievements of local student-athletes in a regional competition.
Kirby School District 140 represents Cook County and includes Christa McAuliffe School, Fernway Park Elementary School, Helen Keller Elementary School, John A. Bannes Elementary School, Millennium Elementary School, Prairie View Middle School, and Virgil I. Grissom Middle School according to the Illinois Report Card. The district enrolled 3,606 students in the 2019-2020 school year and serves grades pre-kindergarten through eighth grade in Tinley Park and Cook County according to the Illinois Report Card.
The district employs a total of 258 teachers with an average salary of $68,179 before pension contributions; women make up more than ninety percent of staff members while men account for nearly ten percent. No teachers had more than ten absences during a school year according to data from the Illinois State Board of Education.
Demographically, Kirby School District 140 is comprised of approximately eighty percent White students; Black students represent just over three percent; Hispanic students are about eight percent; Asian students are around four percent as reported by ISBE. In terms of financials for the year 2020, spending per student was $20,628 with total expenditures reaching $74 million according to state records.
During the same period in 2020 there were eighteen chronically truant students within Kirby School District 140—defined as missing five percent or more of mandated school days without valid excuse—which results in a chronic truancy rate of half a percent compared to a statewide average nearing ten percent as noted by ISBE.
