2019 State Report Cards Released for District 97

Dear District 97 Families, Staff and Community,

On Wednesday, Oct. 30, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) released our annual School Report Card, which shows how well our district and schools are progressing on a wide range of educational goals. The report cards are available at http://www.illinoisreportcard.com/.

Each School Report Card includes a summative designation—a descriptor for how the school is meeting the needs of all students. These designations fall into four categories (Exemplary, Commendable, Underperforming and Lowest-Performing), and are based on eight indicators of academic success and school quality.

Our 2019 designations are listed below. We are proud to share that four of our buildings achieved Exemplary status, which is granted to schools that are performing in the top 10% of schools statewide and have no underperforming student groups. Additionally, four of our schools (Hatch, Holmes, Irving and Julian) improved their designations from last year. At Brooks, we saw improvement in two of our student groups that were identified as underperforming last year, and we strive to continue that improvement for each and every student group this year.

Exemplary Commendable Underperforming

Hatch
Holmes
Irving
Mann
 

Beye
Julian
Lincoln
Longfellow
Whittier

Brooks



 

Because Brooks and Julian were designated as underperforming last year, they will both continue to receive additional federal funding and participate in the IL-EMPOWER improvement process, which includes a comprehensive work plan for school improvement. You can access more information about the designation categories by visiting https://www.isbe.net/Documents/ISBE_Designations.pdf and the indicators of success by visiting https://www.isbe.net/Documents/ISBE-Multiple-Indicators.pdf.

As a district, we are engaged in a continuous improvement process in order to advance our vision of creating a positive learning environment that is equitable, inclusive and focused on the whole child. Our vision and new equity policy are the cornerstones of our district-wide collective action plan and individual school improvement plans, which are developed annually by our school and district leadership teams. This year, we are focusing on the following measures of student success:

  • Increasing the number of favorable responses to the statement: “When I am at school, I feel I belong”
  • Reducing the disproportionality of Black students receiving office discipline referrals
  • Reducing the percentage of students who are chronically absent from school
  • Increasing the percentage of Grade 3 students reading at or above grade level
  • Increasing the percentage of Tier 2 and Tier 3 students who achieve accelerated growth of at least 1.5 years (per year) in Reading
  • Increasing the percentage of Tier 2 and Tier 3 students who achieve accelerated growth of at least 1.5 years (per year) in Mathematics
  • Increasing the percentage of students who are projected college ready in Mathematics
  • Increasing the percentage of students who are projected college ready in Reading

We will use a variety of resources to keep the community updated on the status of our work, including our website, school and district newsletters, social media and community meetings. We also welcome the opportunity to hear your feedback, which can be provided at any time via email or Let’s Talk (http://bit.ly/D97LetsTalk).

Thank you for your continued partnership, and for all that you do to help our children learn, grow and achieve.

Sincerely, 
Dr. Carol Kelley
Superintendent