Urbana SD 116 reviews equity action plan, highlights achievement gaps and attendance challenges

The Urbana School District 116 Board of Education on Monday received a Year 1 progress update on the district's equity action plan and a sequence of school improvement reports from building administrators that together underscored achievement gaps and continuing attendance challenges.

The equity presentation, led by district staff, summarized the district's multi-decade work on race and access and laid out five strands of action: systems (policy and accountability), teaching and learning, student voice and climate, professional learning and family-community engagement. The systems strand reported targeted retention and recruitment work for so-called hard-to-fill positions — notably special education and multilingual roles — and cited high return rates among prioritized staff: "out of 117 special education and dual-language staff members, 91 percent are…