Harlem School District staff presented a new Profile of a Graduate to the board on July 15, a concise framework administrators said will align graduation requirements, career-pathway endorsements and extracurricular experiences around five core categories of student capabilities.

The work was led by Jacob Hubert, director of secondary education, with support from Superintendent Terrell Yarbrough, community stakeholders, educators and students. Hubert said the district gathered about 1,800 responses to stakeholder surveys, convened a 20-person stakeholder group, and worked with students and local partners to develop a short video and a student-facing graphic representing the five categories.

The Profile is intended to simplify overlapping state and national expectations (for example, college-and-career readiness indicators and Illinois’s PACE framework) so students, families and employers can more easily see what a Harlem graduate knows and can do. Administrators plan to use the district’s Xello platform (career and portfolio software supported by Perkins funding) to collect student artifacts — resumes, project work and other evidence — that relate to the five Profile categories.

Why it matters: District leaders said employers and postsecondary institutions increasingly value nonacademic attributes — leadership, initiative, service and communication — in addition to course credits and test scores. The Profile of a Graduate is meant to make those attributes visible and portable for students when applying for jobs, internships or college.

Planned rollout steps include a soft launch in the coming school year, staff training on using Xello, back-to-school-night materials for families, building-level graphics and classroom activities that encourage teachers to highlight one Profile attribute weekly so students can catalog artifacts. Hubert said staff will solicit feedback from teachers and students at the end of the year to refine the approach.

Students and community partners participated in the development process: several Harlem students and local employers appear in a short video shown to the board; students described the effort as an opportunity to compile a practical, portable “package” — not just a diploma — for life after high school.

No formal board action was required for the presentation; administrators said they will return with materials and timelines as they implement the program.