Update on Racial and Educational Equity Initiative -
Corrie Wallace, Equity Consultant for District 65, shared the vision, timeline, and overview for the equity work that will take place in the coming year. The district will conduct "equity walks" in all 18 schools during the 2016-2017 year to understand how changing the district's practices, policies, and procedures will improve outcomes for all children, especially children of color. The equity statement and the information gathered during the "equity walks" will serve as a framework for a district-wide equity policy. More information can be found in the board packet.
Strategic Plan Year in Review - The Strategic Plan Year in Review report and Scorecard were presented to the School Board at Monday's meeting. The report summarized highlights of Year 1 of implementation in each of five priority areas.
The report also provided an update on the status of Quarter 4 progress. Each area was coded as either "green" - meaning all milestones for the quarter were met, or "yellow," meaning that while one or more milestones may be completed after the end of the quarter, sufficient progress has been made to reach the overall goal on-time.
The progress report allows the district to focus on progress towards goals and keeps the strategic plan a living document by providing flexibility to address emerging priorities as the year unfolds. The progress report also provided a look ahead at some of the work that will be the focus of implementation in Year 2:
- CORE INSTRUCTION AND IMPROVED SUPPORTS: We are strengthening our foundational curriculum and instruction while providing targeted supports to striving learners.
- WHOLE CHILD FOCUS: We will expand the work of school climate teams by adding a second cohort of schools and expanding the focus of cohort 1 schools from relationships to safety. We are also expanding restorative justice work to more schools and providing enhanced training to current schools.
- WORKFORCE DIVERSITY: We will continue to improve our recruitment and hiring practices with the goal of increasing the diversity of our workforce. We are also committed to providing improved development opportunities and supports to existing staff.
- COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: We are excited to launch a second community school are are actively planning more ways for families to be involved in the District 65 community. We are also focused on continuing to advance diversity and equity work district-wide.
- FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY: We will continue our commitment to financial transparency and meeting our upcoming budget challenges to ensure the financial sustainability of District 65. We are producing more user-friendly budget documents and will continue to provide updates on our financial outlook.
The report also included a summary of the strategic plan outcomes scorecard, which reports progress made on board goals. Overall, improvement was made on three of four board goals in reading and two of four board goals in math.
Progress Towards Board Goals - In March 2015, the school board approved a set of four outcome goals to serve alongside the strategic plan to guide work in the coming years. The four outcome goals were established to provide a clear sense about what the strategic plan is intended to help students accomplish.
Peter Godard, Chief Officer of Research, Accountability and Data, shared that d
uring the first year of strategic plan implementation,
the district made substantial progress on its three goals related to overall student performance. The district made progress on three of four goals in reading and two of four goals in math. In addition, the district met its 2020 target for the percent of students at/below the 25th percentile in reading.
In regard to the board's equity goal, two of five subgroups representing more than 10 percent of the district's population (Black students and White students) demonstrated a higher percent of students meeting college readiness benchmarks in reading. All five subgroups showed a smaller percent of students meeting readiness benchmarks in math. Assistant Superintendent John Price outlined how principals and school leadership teams are able to use this data for school improvement planning.
Although these results do not put the district on-track for its equity goal, the district did demonstrate substantial progress for all subgroups on two other important indicators of student performance in both reading and math: the percent of students making expected gains and the percent of students at/below the 25th percentile. Board President Candance Chow and Superintendent Goren were pleased to see these leading indicators showing positive results.
