This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Schools

Principals Respond To District 97 Test Results

After four schools failed to meet state testing standards, District 97 principals present a unified plan.

Last month, four Oak Park Elementary School District 97 schools failed to meet certain required marks on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test, prompting the board to request principals of those schools to appear before them.

Instead, Supt. Al Roberts invited principals of all District 97 schools to Tuesday's board meeting.

"I believe we have a better chance to help all students make AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) if, rather than shine a spotlight on the schools that did not meet the standards, our building administrators and central office administrators all work together as a team," Roberts said.

Find out what's happening in Oak Park-River Forestwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Together, the principals presented a unified plan aimed at using added testing data to focus even more on the student achievement, particularly those who are struggling.

Each principal presented part of the plan, describing how they're using additional Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) testing to track all students and identify early on which ones need special attention. Under MAP testing, students answering question correctly are faced with progressively tougher questions.

Find out what's happening in Oak Park-River Forestwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 "If we can help our students early, that will help everyone," said Longfellow School Principal Angela Dolezal.

Those needing more attention in certain subjects are being offered tutoring and other sources of additional support, school officials said.

Roberts said the new data revealed some students are just shy of reaching a higher performance level. Those students especially should be targeted for improvements, Roberts said.

Board member Jennifer Reddy said the importance of this newly collected data should be shown to parents who are concerned about the amount of testing in schools.

"I just think that if parents had this 45 minutes with you like we had here, I think we'd have those light bulbs going off," said Reddy.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?