CHSD 99 presents baseline grades, intervention metrics and reporting limits under strategic plan

Community High School District 99 administrators presented the board with semester-1 baseline measures tied to the district’s strategic-plan indicators for grades and student interventions, and described how current reporting tools undercount some teacher and counselor outreach.

Gina (administrator) and Scott (administrator) introduced the presentation and turned the report over to the schools’ curriculum and student-support leaders. Keith Hales, associate principal for curriculum instruction at Downers Grove North High School, reported that 95.24% of all course grades at North were a C or better for the semester. He said, however, that 16%–16.5% of North High students finished the semester with at least one D or F. "For this first semester at North High, these are all grades earned C or better. So, 95.24% of all grades at North High are a C or better," Hales said.

Jay Gilliland, associate principal for curriculum instruction at Downers Grove South High School, said 29% of South students had at least one D or F and explained how the district attempted to measure whether those students received individual interventions. "Of all of these D- and F-related interventions that are there, the one that’s highlighted is the one we pulled," Gilliland said, describing the district’s decision to count a narrow set of eSchool/TAC (teacher-administration-counseling) note types when constructing the baseline.

Using that narrow definition, South administrators reported 72.5% of students with at least one D had a recorded intervention in TAC or eSchool; for F grades the figure was 90.8%, leaving about 9% of students with F grades without a recorded contact under the district’s chosen metric. North reported similar patterns: about 25.9% of students had at least one D and 12.4% had an F, with some outreach activities not captured by the specific note types the district pulled.

Presenters emphasized this first-year report is a baseline. Scott and others told the board that reporting changes and tool limitations explain at least some of the gap between actual outreach and what the database shows. Scott said the district will move to Infinite Campus next year and expects that migration to make it easier for teachers and counselors to enter standardized intervention notes and for staff to run consistent reports. Jake (staff member), who helped build the report, was cited as assisting with the mail-merge and automated parent-contact messages used this year.

Sarah Corrington, associate principal for student services at Downers Grove South High School, and Erin Levick, associate principal for student support services at Downers Grove North High School, described tiered interventions and the district’s “alpha team” process for intensive, individualized plans. Corrington said alpha teams meet regularly to triage students who do not respond to Tier 1 or Tier 2 supports and that those teams track interventions and a case-closure note. "For the last few years, every team has an agenda with a name, student, what we tried, and then the day we followed up," Corrington said.

Administrators gave concrete counts from the alpha-team monitoring: in 2024, North had 17 students who met all three of the district’s highest-risk indicators and were placed on the threshold list, and staff intervened with 89 individual North students through alpha-team processes; South had 102 students on the threshold list and staff discussed more than 400 students in alpha-team problem solving. Aaron Ludwig (associate principal for student support services at North) clarified that a single D or a single F does not automatically trigger an alpha-team referral; the team uses a threshold that generally requires multiple indicators or repeated failure in multiple courses.

Board members asked about whether the recorded interventions led to grade improvements. Presenters said the district has some targeted, school-level follow-up data but has not yet completed a full analysis of post-intervention grade changes. "I have not had a chance to analyze it," Gilliland said, describing planned follow-up work to compare lists of students at the start and end of the semester.

Presenters acknowledged reporting artifacts and said the board should expect year-to-year changes both from real program effects and from improved data entry when Infinite Campus is in place. They emphasized that the primary goal of the indicator is process-focused: ensure that students who end a semester with a D or F were identified and that outreach occurred so no student ‘‘falls through the cracks.’’

Administrators also described interventions in practice: North’s math-3 lab (a half-lunch targeted support) and targeted parent contact campaigns; South’s Title I-funded math specialists and external tutor programs were cited as additional supports for South students. Board members asked about the resource gap between the schools and whether additional targeted funding or staffing would be required; presenters noted Title I funds already provide some supports at South and said the district reviews the consolidated plan annually to allocate resources.

The presentation closed with administrators requesting the board view the semester as an initial baseline, committing to report trends over time, and planning training and follow-up with teachers and department chairs to increase accurate note entry and to analyze intervention impact in future reporting cycles.