District 97 will be administering the Illinois 5Essentials Survey again this year to certified staff and parents/guardians from all 10 of our schools, as well as students in grades four through eight.
The online survey was developed by the University of Chicago’s Consortium on Chicago School Research and is derived from the Five Essentials for School Success, which is an evidence-based framework that identifies five factors that can lead to important student outcomes such as improved attendance and significant gains in test scores. These five factors/essentials are:
- Effective Leaders
- Collaborative Teachers
- Involved Families
- Supportive Environment
- Ambitious Instruction
The parent survey will take approximately 10 minutes to complete. You may skip questions you do not wish to answer, but the survey must be completed in one sitting and cannot be retrieved once it is submitted. If you have more than one child enrolled in a building (i.e., two students who attend the same school), you have the option of completing multiple surveys for that building. In addition, if you have children enrolled in multiple schools (i.e., a District 97 elementary school and middle school), you may participate in the survey for each school. However, only one parent/guardian per household may fill out the survey.
As with the student and teacher surveys, your identity will be kept completely confidential and your responses will not be linked to you. In addition, school-level reports will only be generated if at least 20 percent of our parents/guardians complete the survey, which can be accessed until April 2, 2021, by visiting http://survey.5-essentials.org/illinois/survey/parent/. This percentage will be based on the total number of students enrolled at each school.
If we successfully meet this requirement, we will receive our reports in Spring/Summer 2021. The results will also be made available to the public via the State School Report Cards, which will be released in the fall.
You can access general information about the Illinois 5Essentials Survey by visiting https://www.uchicagoimpact.org/our-offerings/5essentials.
Thank you for participating in this important endeavor and for your continued support of our schools and the children we serve.