Summer school enrollment at Proviso High School Township District 209 is continuing to climb.
This summer, D209 has 1,600 students enrolled in summer school district wide, with approximately 750 students at Proviso West.
Proviso Math and Science Academy students take summer school at their home school.
Summer school started Monday, June 17 with free registration up to May 31. After May 31, registration was $100.
“It [enrollment] is higher than years past,” said Interim Supt. Alex Aschoff. “I will say this, the numbers are taken with a grain of salt.”
Aschoff said that last year, the district had just over 1,000 students enrolled.
The enrollment numbers can “ebb and flow” depending on student needs, said Aschoff.
According to Aschoff, there are about 300 students who are enrolled in summer school for original credit and/or enrichment, meaning they did not have to take summer school, but chose to.
This is possible because the district is increasing their original credit offerings and enrichment activities.
“Some students are on track with their credit earnings and are seeking original credit courses to essentially get a head in their credit work,” Aschoff said.
During the superintendent report for the June board meeting, board member Arbdella Patterson raised concern over the number of enrolled students, including those enrolled for Edgenuity, which is a credit recovery online option designed for students who did not successfully earn credit in the traditional classroom setting.
“I am real concerned because the president of the teachers union stood there and said it was best to have teachers stand before students and it looks like we are offering a bit of Edgenuity,” Patterson said. “I am confused. I thought we needed teachers and that is one of the reasons why we kinda went back to all of the teachers.”
Patterson did not respond to requests for comment.
Credit recovery is offered for English, math, science, and social studies.
Data showed that for session 1 of summer school there were 506 students at East and 485 students at West enrolled in Edgenuity. For session 2 of summer school, there were 355 students at East and 327 students at West enrolled at the time of the June 11 meeting.
“The number is high, I will say that,” Aschoff said.
But why has enrollment in summer school increased for students who need to earn back those credits?
There can be various factors, said Aschoff.
One is the doing away with the 50% rule, which goes back to its adoption in 2020.
The policy itself was the notion that with grades, thinking on a percent scale of 0 to 100, it was a policy that no student could earn any less than a 50%.
“That means that if a student didn’t do the work, their grade would be a 50%,” said Aschoff. “There was no zero.”
According to Aschoff, the Proviso board of education adopted the 50% grading policy in December 2020, but later rescinded the policy in August 2023.
“I think we are seeing some of the effects of that decision,” Aschoff said, adding it may be a slight factor in why summer school numbers have gone up.
Chronic absenteeism has also played a part in the need for summer school.
According to the 2023 Illinois Report Card, Proviso D209 scored a 66.4% in chronic absenteeism, meaning that is the percentage of students who missed 10% or more of school days per year with or without a valid excuse.
“We certainly do have to look at that,” Aschoff said. “We do closely monitor our attendance from a district standpoint.”
The Illinois state average for chronic absenteeism is 28.3%.
Aschoff said the district implemented a guide for attendance offices and building administrators to help support the drive to better attendance.
The first step is better communication, Aschoff said, adding that personal calls versus robocalls from the district can help improve that communication with parents.
Then comes “wrap around services,” he added.
“Working to put in place items to help provide more of those social emotional services and support structures to get at the ‘why’ students are not attending,” Aschoff said. “Those are going to be important things to put in place.”
With the recent reintroduction of deans, Aschoff said he believes that will help bring back those structures, allowing assistant principals to free up a lot of their time to get to that ‘why.’
Aschoff said the curriculum and assessment committee, formed of teachers, met to engage and plan around the core areas of curriculum and assessment to help maximize instruction during the school year.
“Leaning on these opportunities because we don’t have department chair division heads,” Aschoff said. “We are trying to work within the boundaries that we have to ultimately support our students as best we can.”
“You’ve seen our test scores, we are struggling as a district with our performance with math and English, which is why we need to do everything we can during the school year, trying to put things in place that will help support our instruction and instruction goals for our district,” Ashcoff said.
Credit recovery opportunities are also available during the school year, he added, saying that counselors meet with students throughout the year to talk about graduation requirements.
If students fail to meet the credits to move up to the next grade level, they will not be promoted to the next grade level.
“Ultimately, the goal is to graduate on time,” Aschoff said. “If students aren’t taking advantage of this it is really about having those conversations to work with the parent and work with the student.”