Evanston Township High School District 202 reviewed the high school’s Year in Review report and the D202 School Report Card at Monday night’s Board of Education meeting.
Board members also discussed the National Summit for Courageous Conversations and the tax levy memorandum, which includes a 6.8% increase and is planned to be adopted at the board’s Dec. 11 meeting.
Carrie Levy, ETHS director of research, evaluation & assessment, presented the year in review report, focusing on data collected from a student survey during the 2022-2023 school year. Levy said her goal was to report the data through an equity lens.
About 80% of students filled out the district’s wellbeing survey. Fifty-six percent of these students felt like they belonged quite a bit or completely at school. And, 25% of students reported they feel quite or extremely connected to adults at school.
School Board Member Gretchen Livingston said she understood why few students might feel connected to the community, citing the large size of the high school.
“We do our best to make it feel small, but I think it’s very easy for individual students to feel lost in the mix,” she said.
Board members also discussed the D202 School Report Card, which collects data on student academic performance in English and math. ETHS Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum & Instruction Pete Bavis said math, specifically, is an area of “great, great need.” Many students who are placed in geometry struggle with algebra skills, Bavis said. Due to this, the district plans to redo freshman math placement tests.
In all the categories listed in the district report card, ETHS was above the state average. When the ETHS data was broken down, however, some racial demographics were performing lower than others.
“Our Black students are at the bottom, consistently still and they are being outperformed consistently,” Board Vice President Monique Parsons said. “I’m just trying to figure out how we use this data to continue to push and be more persistent in addressing that.”
Parsons said several ETHS officials attended the Summit for Courageous Conversations, a conference supporting conversations about race, racism and equity in schools, in hopes of helping to offset these disparities.
ETHS Superintendent Marcus Campbell also gave his report to the board, where he explained how ETHS is responding to the ongoing conflict in Israel and Palestine.
“Our next step is to create different listening spaces at ETHS to hear and understand the pain and the potential for hope that we carry at our school during such a difficult time,” he said. “We cannot build community and foster hope in isolation. The best way to do that is to do it together.”
Other agenda items included the opening of school report and the approval of the treasurer’s report, bills and the personnel report.
Board President Pat Savage-Williams highlighted the importance of continuing to work to make ETHS a better place for students.
“We’re not perfect, we’ve got some ways to go,” she said. “This helps drive our work, when we see which students are not feeling a part of things here.”
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @anavi_52
Related Stories:
— Petition calls to cancel tardiness rollover policy at ETHS
— The search for a new District 65 superintendent continues amid 5th Ward school difficulty
