All Illinois schools will receive a summative designation, or rating, in one of four tiers
Dear Parents and Guardians, The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is federal legislation that requires each state to develop its own ESSA plan in order to access federal grant dollars that ultimately flow to individual school districts. This is the first year that the State of Illinois will fully implement this plan. To learn more about the ESSA plan, you can review this presentation, which District 58 shared with the Board of Education and our community in July 2018.
As required by ESSA, each Illinois school will receive a summative designation - a rating on a four-tier scale. This rating is based upon a number of factors including academic achievement, chronic absenteeism and academic growth; in fact, growth comprises 50 percent of the overall rating. Later this month, you will receive a letter from your building principal that discusses the rating for your individual school and provides a bit more detail on the way that rating was calculated by the state. Your principal will also invite you to a parent ESSA forum at your individual school, which will provide further context and an opportunity for questions to be answered in person. For a closer look at our Spring 2018 and Fall 2018 data, you can review the data presentation from our Oct. 10, 2018 Board meeting.
These state-level rankings are one way that our schools are measured and evaluated by the state. Locally, we continue to review multiple measures as we reflect upon our district’s many celebrations and many opportunities for continued improvement. We review our students’ MAP, AIMSWeb Plus, PARCC and other standardized data to monitor achievement at points in time and growth over periods of time. We consider student learning environment, opportunities for success in our district and beyond, and the social-emotional development of each child. For a glance at some of these measures captured last year, you can reference our points of pride flyer.
The ESSA designations and calculations will be discussed during our Curriculum Workshop, held Monday, Oct. 22 at 7 pm at Herrick Middle School, 4435 Middaugh Ave. We remain committed to providing you with detailed information around student achievement and growth and its reflection on local and state assessment reports. Should you have any questions about the state ESSA plan or our district data, please feel free to contact me at jsisul@dg58.org or 630-719-5867. You may also learn more information by visiting www.dg58.org/essa.
Sincerely,
Justin Sisul
Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction