Evanston Township High School District 202 board members will decide tonight how to present the school to the state of Illinois when they vote on acceptance of the “School Report Card.”

Board member Jane Colleton said the report card is prepared by the board each year before being submitted to the state for publication and dissemination.

The form of the report is state-mandated, board member Steven Gilford said. It includes information, such as enrollment statistics with racial, gender and class breakdowns, from the Opening of School Report, which was released at the Oct. 9 board meeting.

One issue of contention in the report card is the classification of multiracial students, Colleton said. The school has an option on its registration card for multiracial students, but those who check it will not be recognized as any specific race.

“It’s like your ancestry disappears,” Colleton said.

A warning on the card explains that students may lose opportunities for tutoring or recognition programs through the school that are specific to one race. The category is being chosen less each year, possibly in connection to that warning.

Colleton plans to bring this concern up for more discussion at tonight’s meeting.

“Kids should be allowed to describe themselves accurately,” Colleton said.

The board also will vote is on the Truth-in-Taxation resolution, which Colleton called “perfunctory.”

Because a third of the community’s tax bill comes from the school board, it must publish notices and hold a hearing if it plans to increase the levy. Colleton said that although no residents usually attend the hearings, she expects the board will pass the resolution.

The superintendent’s annual report will be presented a second time for questions and discussion.

The report is “the most comprehensive compilation on the school’s performance in the past year,” Gilford said. It includes statistics on enrollment and standardized testing.

The report has been improved by organizing it around the superintendent’s goals, Gilford said. Instead of just viewing pages of statistics, the board can see what is being achieved.

“We’ve asked the administration for a lot of data,” board Vice President Margaret Lurie said.

Board members were looking for a “systematic approach” in evaluating the school’s support programs and were concerned about working from anecdotal data, Lurie said.

The Academic Achievement Report, another compilation of statistics, will be presented for the first time tonight. It compares students at ETHS with student averages across Illinois and the rest of the country.

“This is what we’re going to be using to make any changes in graduation requirements,” Colleton said.

The report includes statistics on the effects of a core curriculum. Superintendent Allan Alson has been considering implementing a core curriculum at ETHS.

“(It will) add ammunition to (Alson’s) argument,” Lurie noted.

This also will be the first time the board has scores from the Prairie State Achievement tests, which is given to juniors, and includes the ACT and a workplace-readiness component. Statistics about the test show that blacks and Latinos at ETHS did better than blacks and Latinos across the state.

The Minority Student Achievement Plan Update also will be presented.

“Minority student achievement is one of the primary goals of the board,” Gilford said. The board will review the progress presented in the update and discuss what else can be done, he said.