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Superintendent outlines strategic-plan process; district highlights strong Illinois report-card results
Summary
Superintendent described a four-part strategic planning process with community focus groups, targeted surveys and steering teams; curriculum staff presented the Illinois School Report Card showing most schools commendable or exemplary and noted shifts in state cut scores and areas to monitor such as fifth-grade science and multilingual learner progress.
The superintendent told trustees the district will pursue a four-part strategic planning process—revising mission, vision, values and goal-area wording—guided by a steering team and multiple community engagement steps. Staff plan five focused community evenings, targeted focus groups, and a brief community survey (planned for January) to gather strategic feedback the district can act on rather than broad open-ended input.
Superintendent and staff said the process will begin with internal drafts and focus groups, then move to community evenings that will pair short presentations with table-based means testing of specific choices. They emphasized the need to pick priorities rather than try to do everything: “We can do anything, but we can’t do everything,” a district leader said. Staff named Pam Northrup as the coach who will guide early work beginning the week after the meeting.
Curriculum director Samantha presented the Illinois School Report Card, saying every district school rated as commendable or exemplary this year and that three schools moved into the exemplary category—Field, Lincoln and Franklin (Samantha noted Roosevelt missed exemplary by one point). She explained the state changed proficiency cut scores: the new cut scores lowered thresholds in ELA and math but raised them in science, which reduced reported science proficiency in some grades. Samantha gave current district proficiency snapshots (ILA/ELA 79% meeting proficiency, math 69% meeting proficiency under the new cut scores) and noted the student-growth percentile (SGP) measure was not affected by the cut-score change.
Staff also highlighted reductions in chronic absenteeism at some schools as a notable success, but flagged multilingual learner progress to proficiency and fifth-grade science as areas that need continued attention. The board discussed how middle-school schedule and program reviews will run in parallel with the strategic plan and agreed staff should report interim results in January rather than wait until the final plan.
Next steps: staff will present first drafts and initial focus-group findings in upcoming meetings, run the brief survey in January, and schedule the community evenings and steering-team work into the winter and spring months.
