The Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Board of Education reviewed the district’s annual achievement and accountability report and discussed its Structural Deficit Reduction Plan at its Monday Committee of the Whole meeting.
The first agenda item of the board’s four-hour meeting was a review of the Achievement and Accountability Report. The report is part of a new reporting method in the district, which will also include quarterly progress updates on academic progress and climate indicators, a regularly-updated interactive data dashboard and a strategic plan scorecard to display overall progress.
The percentage of students meeting or exceeding the college readiness benchmark increased by 3% in language arts and 6% in math, said Donna Cross, the district’s executive director of research, assessment, accountability and data.
However, there was a decrease in the number of students meeting their individual expected growth targets, which are different from the college readiness benchmark, this past year. The largest decrease was in math, at 8%.
Superintendent Angel Turner said teachers had heightened professional learning in language arts. Schools were able to focus on specific subjects and choose whether they wanted ELA-aligned or math-aligned goals for the year, she said. A vast majority of schools chose ELA as their “guiding factor,” Turner added.
“I think that’s representative in the data that you see, because the schools that did that, you see where the focus overall for us as a district went up,” she said.
Attendance-wise, average daily attendance trended upwards with a district average of 93.7% last year, according to the report.
There was also a decrease in the total number of suspensions, but suspension numbers still showed disproportionality for subgroups. In particular, Black students made up 70% of the out-of-school suspensions while only making up 23% of the district’s student population. Similar disproportionality was also seen with both students with individualized education programs and those eligible for free or reduced lunches.
During her presentation of the report, Cross also highlighted improvements in the five essential scores — effective leaders, collaborative teachers, involved families, supportive environment and ambitious instruction — for the schools.
“In the five essentials, the two measures that improved were collaborative teachers and effective leaders,” Cross said. “These were the two teacher respondent areas.”
Later in the meeting, D65’s SDRP Facilities Committee presented updates on their plan. The committee’s work is part of Phase 3 of the SDRP, which aims to reduce district spending by $10 to 15 million.
Issues including building maintenance, enrollment numbers and occupancy rates have dominated the cost reductions conversation. When Foster School opens and Dr. Bessie Rhodes School of Global Studies closes next school year, the district’s occupancy rate will shift downward from 65% to 58%, said Susan Harkin, the district’s SDRP consultant.
Board members also discussed potential changes to the district’s transportation policy. One point of discussion was a proposal to provide crossing guards only near schools, not at any city intersections. If this change was to be implemented, about 25 crossing guards would be eliminated, according to a policy memo. The board didn’t make any official decisions regarding the policy changes this week.
The board also discussed scenarios involving closures of between zero and four schools with a goal of 90 percent occupancy in mind. Board members were largely in agreement that a scenario modeling two to four school closures would be ideal. Board member Omar Salem said that he would like to see scenarios modeling three to four school closures since models with zero or one may be “misleading” to the community.
These scenarios will be officially reviewed at the Sept. 29 regular board meeting, allowing board members to be as educated as possible on the potential closures, Board President Sergio Hernandez said.
“We want to make sure that we have enough opportunities to see whether the light bulb moments are happening for all of our kids, not just a few,” Hernandez said.
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