The principals from Proviso East, Proviso West and Proviso Math and Science Academy presented school improvement plans to the D209 board of education last month, each with a focus on addressing improving achievement scores and absentee rates.
Proviso East
Principal Rodney Hull said East received a “targeted” designation from the state. According to the Illinois Report Card, “targeted” is defined as a “school in which one or more student groups is performing at or below the level of all ‘student’ groups in the lowest performing five percent of schools.”
According to Hull, the projected state designation for 2024 is “commendable,” meaning a “school that has no underperforming student groups, a graduation rate greater than 67%, and whose performance is not in the top 10% of schools statewide.”
East has 1560 enrolled students, 124 teaching staff employees, and 78 support staff employees.
Hull presented his three goals for East, saying that he likes to keep the goals “small and manageable” and something that can be monitored throughout the course of the school year.
The first goal is academic, with a focus on increasing the median student growth percentile on the Renaissance Star Reading Assessment from 50% to 55% and from 51% to 56% on the Renaissance Star Math Assessment from the fall to the spring.
Administration, Hull said, will be focusing on the continuous work of the professional learning community – an organizational structure that meets regularly to collaborate on improving teaching skills and academic performance of students – which will examine scores, plan instruction and assess progress.
East will continue common assessment development and ongoing professional development and support for staff on STAR Assessments.
The second goal is to reduce current chronic absenteeism rates by 5% by the end of the school year.
According to the 2023 Illinois State Report Card, 66.4% of students at East miss 10% or more of school days per year with or without a valid excuse. This number has nearly doubled since 2021, when 35.8% of students were chronically absent.
Daily monitoring of attendance, implementation and monitoring of a four-to-six-week intervention program for identified students and follow-up referrals to programs at West40 are some of the actions East will be taking to meet this goal.
The third goal is to reduce the overall out-of-school suspension rates by 5% by the end of the school year.
According to the Illinois Report Card, 220 students received out-of-school suspensions, but 320 incidents were reported, with Black male students receiving the most suspensions.
“We really took a deep dive to the causes of what was getting kids out of school suspension and disrupting their learning,” Hull said. “And having those conversations with students and parents, anybody that was chronically getting in trouble.”
Hull said the goal of hiring two deans for East will help support this process.
Proviso West
Principal Elizabeth Martinez said West was currently working on a three-to-five-year plan “all based on best practices, data and research.”
Martinez said the focus is on “collective efficacy” with the motto “West is the best.”
The first goal focuses on academics.
According to Anne Gottlieb, assistant principal at West, the school chose to focus on ACT benchmarks.
“We hope to increase those students meeting those benchmarks in reading and math by 5% in each area,” Gottlieb said.
West will strive to increase the number of juniors meeting ACT grade level benchmarks in reading from 6.9% to 12% and from 3% to 8% in math.
Students have already shown a modest increase in reading since 2021. Math has only improved by .8% during those years.
The second goal for the school year is to decrease the number of out-of-school suspensions by 15%.
According to the 2023 Illinois Report Card, 142 students received an OSS from the 196 incidents reported, with the majority receiving a three- or four-day suspension.
Assistant Principal Akiva Carson said the school uses student data to move students through different tiers, which provide appropriate interventions and better support in the classrooms.
The third goal for West is to decrease the number of tardy students by 10%, as well as decrease the truancy rate by 10%.
“The rationale is to help our students receive the academic support that they need in order to be successful,” said Shamika Jones, assistant principal at West.
The school will be working with a caseload of 25 students who have been identified as needing the “most assistance.” The school will conduct home visits and bi-weekly reports.
West will also be implementing a Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support program, an evidence-based framework for supporting positive student behavior designed to improve social emotional competence, academic success and school climate.
“Sometimes the focus has been more on a punitive aspect of it but we want to reinforce behaviors in a positive way,” Jones said.
Proviso Math and Science Academy
Erin Mason, assistant principal of instruction at PMSA, said the school wants to “keep it small and effective but go deep,” in their goals for the 2024-25 school year.
PMSA shared the similar goals at East and West: academics and attendance but also decided to focus on culture and climate.
The first goal is improving math and reading ACT scores by 5 points for the Spring 2025 semester.
With the announcement of the switch back to the ACT test from the SAT test by the Illinois State Board of Education earlier this year, Mason said that by looking at the junior class and applying the conversion from SAT to ACT scores, students scored the equivalent of a 16.5 in both reading and math during their Fall 2022 PSAT admissions test for PMSA.
Students’ scores have gone up, Mason said, increasing to 18 points in reading and 17 points in math by the spring of 2024. According to Mason the goal is to have students reach the 22-point benchmark by the spring of 2025.
“They are already in really good shape to do that,” Mason said.
To help students reach that goal, Mason said PMSA will be having walk-throughs in all subject area classrooms on Wednesdays, implement 20 minutes of reading twice a week in social studies and science classes, and ensure curriculum-approved texts along with other implementation steps.
The second goal is to improve culture and climate through a freshman mentor program and to increase the sense of belonging.
Groups of freshmen will be assigned to upperclassman ambassadors to meet every two weeks during lunch. Student surveys will be created and data will be reviewed by the Students Services Team to determine how to address student needs.
The third goal is to decrease chronic absenteeism by 5%.
According to the 2023 Illinois Report Card, 27.6% of students are chronically absent, a 10.3% increase from the 2022 report.
However, Mason said PMSA’s chronic absenteeism rate for the past year was 21.49%. The goal for this new school year is to decrease to 16.5%.
Implementation will include determining the best attendance reports, establishing firm guidelines for early dismissals, working with MTSS teams to use new systems to pull behavior, attendance, and grades data, and to run quarterly attendance incentives for each grade level.
