District reports progress on 5Essentials goals, Boys Town and Capturing Kids' Hearts programs

District leaders updated the Moline-Coal Valley CUSD 40 board on Feb. 9 about progress toward an 'environment' improvement goal that uses the 5Essentials framework and relies on leadership capacity-building and implementation fidelity.

Presenters described work with an external consultant (Victor Simon, BOP Consulting) to onboard new principals and to provide professional development for teacher cohorts. The district said it is building internal capacity so training can be sustained locally and reported recent use of fidelity checklists, walk-throughs and an implementation survey to assess program delivery.

On behavior programming, the district discussed adopting Capturing Kids' Hearts at two middle schools and Boys Town at elementary buildings. Trainers have provided initial training and follow-up fidelity visits; district leaders said they will expand train-the-trainer opportunities this spring so buildings can sustain practice without ongoing external dependency.

Board members asked how impact would be measured. District staff emphasized that implementation fidelity—not raw referral numbers—must be established first, and pointed to use of walk-throughs and normed implementation data to compare progress against benchmarks.

Members of the board acknowledged the approach and noted the need to align measurement tools with district goals; staff said they will continue collecting implementation survey data and 5Essentials results to track progress toward a 2028 target date.