District 211 reports gains on multiple academic goals; principals highlight student stories

Township High School District 211 administrators presented the 2024—25 academic goals performance on Oct. 9, emphasizing multiple measures of student success across involvement, growth, college and career readiness, on-track-to-graduation, wellness, and equity.

Superintendent Judith Campbell introduced the presentation and turned it to Assistant Superintendent Josh Shoemaker and principals from five large high schools, who highlighted school-level results and individual student examples.

Schaumburg High School Principal Tom Mokhan said the district—s "involvement" goal measures attendance, activity participation, service hours and employment. He reported a 4.4 percentage-point improvement over four years in involvement and noted Schaumburg had 93 percent of students connected in at least one indicator. Mokhan cited flexible scheduling and transportation changes that helped more low-income and multilingual learners join extracurriculars.

Friend High School Principal Mark Langer attributed academic-growth gains to an acceleration strategy and expanded AP offerings. He highlighted AP English Language growth, reporting that AP Lang enrollment rose from 295 to 426 students and the number scoring a 3 or better on the AP exam rose from 235 to 366. Langer shared a student case, "Carrie," to illustrate rapid progress from multilingual supports into AP-level coursework.

Hoffman Estates Principal Michael Alter reported increases in ACCESS (English learner) proficiency and English readiness indicators: 141 multilingual learners met exit criteria and 831 students met English-readiness indicators in 2025, a 3 percent increase. Alter credited a bilingual program model and Illinois Auto Acceleration Act changes that expanded access to honors/advanced coursework.

Conant High School and Palatine High School principals described steady performance on on-track-to-graduation measures, subgroup improvements (notably closing gaps in Hispanic/Latino on-track rates at Conant), and wellness gains by using Panorama and the Fitnessgram. Palatine reported a 19 percent increase in students meeting the wellness goal and that 100 percent of Palatine students identified a trusted staff member.

Board members praised the presentations and asked questions about monitoring alumni outcomes, attendance definitions, the 5Essentials scoring change that affected peer-relationship metrics, bilingual program details, and recruitment of diverse staff. Assistant Superintendent Shoemaker and the principals provided clarifications about measurement methodology (for example, attendance measured as 90 percent presence, not tardiness) and explained district strategies for acceleration and targeted interventions.

The presentation concluded with the administration—s statement that the district will continue to refine programs and monitor subgroup performance. Board members thanked principals for school-level examples and praised staff work behind the district—s reported gains.