Thursday, May 24, 2012
Percy Julian Middle School asst. principal to begin new duties across town July 1.
Percy Julian Middle School assistant principal Sam LeDeaux was named as new principal of Horace Mann Elementary School this week. His appointment was unanimously approved at Tuesday's Oak Park Elementary Public School District 97 board meeting. He'll replace Nimisha Kumar, who announced her resignation in March after allegations surfaced that school staffers may have altered Illinois Standard Achievement Test (ISAT) forms after they were submitted by students. Earlier: Mann Principal Resigns after ISAT "Irregularities" Kumar will continue through June 30; LeDeaux, who also served as assistant principal at Longfellow, takes over July 1. His one-year contract has a base salary of $100,000, school officials said. Here's the district's press …
Monday, November 29, 2010
For the eighth straight year, District 97 records rise in students.
Enrollment in Oak Park Elementary School District 97 has risen for an eighth straight year, according to the latest data. The 2010-2011 school year enrollment is at 5,576, compared to 4,923 in 2002-2003 — a 13 percent jump. That's a trend that will eventually strain the district's low ratio of students per teacher, which was at 15.5 students per teacher last year, compared to the state average of 18.2. "We just keep getting bigger, we keep growing as a district," said Kevin Anderson, District 97's assistant superintendent for teaching and learning. Anderson said the trend also will start to also cause some facility and budgetary concerns if class sizes are to remain as they are, because meeting that growing student population would …
41.879678
-87.799371
Oak Park Elementary School District 97
970 Madison St, Oak Park, IL
/articles/oak-parks-elementary-school-population-continues-to-swell
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Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Recent forum addresses challenges of district's many gifted students.
While administrators with Oak Park Elementary School District 97 wrestle with boosting the performance of students who performed poorly on the ISAT tests, parents are asking school officials to not lose track of the most gifted students. Last week, District 97 held a public discussion at Percy Julian Middle School centering on gifted students. The discussion was led by new superintendent Al Roberts, who said he was inspired to start the forum at the urging of group PAGE97 (Parents Advocating for Gifted Education). A PDF flier with more information about PAGE97 is posted with this story. "Raising the bar at the top positively influences all learners," said Roberts. "It's clear to me that nobody in our organization wants to accept …
Friday, October 15, 2010
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. Together, the principals presented a unified plan aimed at using added testing data to focus even more on the student achievement, …
41.879678
-87.799371
Oak Park Elementary School District 97
970 Madison St, Oak Park, IL
/articles/principals-respond-to-district-97-test-results
246152
/locations/2203365
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Whittier and Irving show improvement, but four new schools fail to meet No Child Left Behind standard.
Four Oak Park schools have failed to meet Illinois Standards Achievement Test scores, school officials said. Oliver Wendell Holmes and Abraham Lincoln elementary schools, as well as Gwendolyn Brooks and Percy Julian middle schools, all fell short of making adequate yearly progress, or AYP, according to information released at Tuesday's Oak Park Elementary School District 97 school board meeting. But the news was tempered with significant improvement in scores of students at John Greenleaf Whittier and Washington Irving elementary schools, especially black students there. Whereas just half of black Whittier students met AYP in 2009 in reading, some 85% did so in 2010, for example. Because all of the four schools failing to meet AYP this …
