Round Lake CUSD 116 moves to three-year school improvement plans, highlights attendance and literacy initiatives

A district staff member for Round Lake CUSD 116 said the district has lengthened its school improvement plans from one year to three years and outlined several classroom and schoolwide efforts to boost attendance, literacy and graduation rates.

"The single most important thing that we do ... all of our planning, all of our effort is strictly tied to student data," the district staff member said, adding that the longer plans will allow schools to "gather and analyze meaningful data over 3 years" to see which initiatives are working.

District presenters said the three-year plans are intended to give schools time to set more ambitious goals and measure progress across multiple school years rather than within a single year. The district identified three recurring focuses across its schools: language and literacy in early childhood, English language arts and math proficiency in elementary and middle grades, and raising ACT scores and graduation rates at the high school level. Reducing chronic absenteeism was listed as a cross-cutting priority.

Presenters described classroom- and building-level initiatives intended to support those goals. At an early childhood center, staff launched an "EEC Little Readers" book-club program: each small group chooses a book, uses the book in classroom activities, and sends one copy home with each child to build home libraries and family engagement. The staff member said the school coordinates related spirit days and family activities tied to the book selection.

Attendance incentives were presented as a separate strategy. Presenters said the district recognizes students with excellent attendance and distributes free pizza coupons as a surprise award. In one classroom-level incentive, when an entire class is present the school displays a poster and celebrates the group; presenters said students also enjoy being photographed for recognition.

Round Lake High School's efforts include the "Are You Proud of It?" campaign, the district staff member said, which highlights goals such as raising ACT scores, increasing average daily attendance and pushing graduation rates above 90 percent.

The presentation also described a technology-driven incentive at one school to encourage work on iReady personalized lessons. "Our principal, Mr. Kabelka, designed a Super Mario incentive" in which students color a card and move a car on a track as they pass lessons; landing on certain cutouts lets students spin a prize wheel at the front office, presenters said. That incentive was described as a way to motivate students to log in to iReady, spend required time on lessons and demonstrate mastery by passing them.

Presenters emphasized school climate and culture as foundational to the district's improvement work, saying efforts include visible branding, student-created artwork in common areas, and extracurricular clubs adopting sections of the building to improve pride and belonging.

No formal board votes or policy adoptions were recorded in the provided transcript excerpts. The remarks in the record are descriptive of the district's implementation choices and incentives rather than actions that required board approval.