Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘School Districts’ Category

Gov.-Pritzker-signing

Illinois may soon require all public school districts to front the costs of a full-day kindergarten program starting in 2027. There is no designated financial support from the state. Opponents said it’s not about a lack of desire or need, but the lack of funding.

A bill on Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s desk could mandate every public school in Illinois to provide full-day kindergarten by 2027, despite offering no funding assistance or estimates on the costs to taxpayers.

House Bill 2396 would require school districts around the state to provide full-day kindergarten to families with children ages 4 to 6 by the 2027-2028 school year. The bill also creates a task force to estimate the costs to local taxpayers of implementing the mandate and to track enrollment.

Illinois previously only required schools to offer a half-day kindergarten program. A Chalkbeat analysis of Illinois State Board of Education data shows over 700 of the state’s 852 school districts already reported full-day kindergarten enrollments.

School districts that don’t already provide full-day kindergarten may need to raise local taxes to cover the costs of the new program. Those include building new classrooms and hiring more teachers, said Illinois Principals Association Government and Public Relations Director Alison Maley.

Maley said without money in the bill to help local school districts implement the mandate, it comes down to whether local taxpayers can afford it.

“It’s not for a lack of desire, it’s a lack of space, lack of resources, lack of staffing,” Maley said.

Read more here.

Read Full Post »

high-school-graduation

Illinois is in the minority of states graduating a higher percentage of students during the first two years of the pandemic. But state data shows those high school students’ SAT scores are dropping and a smaller percentage are immediately continuing onto higher education.

A higher rate of Illinois high school students has graduated since the pandemic, but with lower SAT scores and fewer of them headed to college soon after getting their diplomas.

Illinois is one of 20 states to increase its public school graduation rate during the first two years of the pandemic, based on an analysis of 44 responding states’ data by the EdWeek Research Center. The graduation rate in Illinois continued to increase in 2022.

Yet 11% fewer students graduating from Illinois public high schools are enrolling in U.S. colleges within the first 12 to 16 months after graduating, compared to 2019. The percent of high school students who met proficiency standards has fallen in both reading and math since 2019 as students record poorer performances on the SAT.

Illinois high school graduation rates up, college entry down

Proficiency and college enrollment rates sink lower for Illinois high school students as graduation rates gradually increase.

Rates

Illinois graduation rate increases

Graduation rates in Illinois have fluctuated since the onset of the pandemic. Overall, there has been a slight increase in Illinois’ graduation rate since 2019, the final graduation year prior to the pandemic.

Illinois’ four-year graduation rate increased to 87.3% in 2022, marking a 1.1 percentage point increase since 2019. In 2022, 260 Illinois school districts had a higher graduation rate than the statewide average, with 11 districts reporting a 100% graduation rate.

The graduation rate in 2020 was the highest in the past four years. The State Board of Education and Gov. J.B. Pritzker made adjustments to graduation requirements for the class of 2020 because in-person instruction was suspended at the end of the 2020 school year.

Read more here.

Read Full Post »

reading-education-maed

The Illinois legislature has voted to require a statewide literacy plan to change the way reading is taught in public schools.

Senate Bill 2243 passed the state Senate May 19 in a 56-0 vote. The week before, it passed the House with only one no vote. The measure can now be sent to Gov. J.B. Pritzker for his signature.

Jessica Handy, executive director of education advocacy group Stand for Children Illinois, said the bill is an important milestone in a really long journey.

“There is definitely work to do as we develop this plan. And even after the plan is there, we have more work to do as districts implement new literacy instruction,” she said.

Forty percent of students in the third through eighth grades in the United States lack basic reading skills, the National Assessment of Educational Progress has found. Lack of reading skills in Illinois are in line with reading levels in schools across the country, Handy said.

“Illinois is not out of sync with the rest of the country,” she said.

What has changed this year is that the Illinois State Board of Education has gotten on board with the goal of coming up with a better plan to teach reading.

More here.

Read Full Post »

Arlington Kin

Kindergarten classes in Arlington Heights Elementary District 25, like Kathy Riesing’s at Dryden Elementary School, would go to full-day beginning in August 2024 under a plan by the district that will add several new classrooms to most schools. (Joe Lewnard | Staff Photographer)

If Gov. J.B. Pritzker signs a bill requiring full-day kindergarten in all elementary and unit school districts within four years, at least nine suburban districts would be forced to comply, even if voters rejected proposals in the past.

That’s according to a Daily Herald analysis of 80 suburban districts in five counties.

The percentage statewide is similar: About 11% of elementary and unit districts statewide don’t currently have full-day kindergarten, education officials said.

And the cost of changing that would be shouldered by taxpayers in those districts.

All nine of the suburban districts without full-day kindergarten offer half-day classes. Some of the districts are in the process of making the transition to full-day after recent voter-approved — and costly — tax hikes.

Both Palatine Elementary District 15 and Arlington Heights Elementary District 25 schools will soon have full-day kindergarten no matter the outcome of the proposed legislation that was sent to Pritzker last week.

District 25 is borrowing $75 million to make additions and renovations at six of the district’s seven elementary schools to accommodate the shift. They also estimate another $1.4 million is needed annually to cover operational costs for personnel and supplies.

In the suburbs, there are five other suburban elementary districts without full-day kindergarten: Des Plaines 62, Mount Prospect 57, Prospect Heights 23, Bloomingdale 13 and Glen Ellyn 41. Two unit districts in Lake County, Barrington 220 and Wauconda 118, also are without full-day kindergarten classes.

While District 220 offers an “enrichment program” for kindergartners that allows students to remain at school all day, changes to that curriculum would be needed for it to be considered full-day kindergarten, district officials said.

More here.

Read Full Post »

Classroom 1

Iowa teachers will be banned from raising gender identity and sexual orientation issues with students through grade six, and all books depicting sex acts will be removed from school libraries, under a bill Republican Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed Friday.

The new law is among similar measures that have been approved in other Republican-dominated statehouses around the country. As with many of those proposals, Iowa Republicans framed their action as a commonsense effort to ensure that parents can oversee what their children are learning in school and that teachers not delve into topics such as gender and sexuality.

Despite the opposition of all Democratic legislators, Republicans who hold large majorities in Iowa’s state House and Senate approved the measure in April and there was little doubt that Reynolds would sign it; she had made issues related to gender identity and sexuality a focal point of her legislative agenda this year.

“This legislative session, we secured transformational education reform that puts parents in the driver’s seat, eliminates burdensome regulations on public schools, provides flexibility to raise teacher salaries, and empowers teachers to prepare our kids for their future,” Reynolds said in a statement.

Under the new law, school administrators also would be required to notify parents if students asked to change their pronouns or names. Religious texts will be exempt from the library ban on books depicting sex acts.

Democrats and LGBTQ groups argued that the restrictions would hurt children by limiting their ability to be open with teachers about gender and sexuality issues and to see their lives reflected in books and other curriculum.

The law’s passage was not a surprise, said Keenan Crow, director of policy and advocacy at the LGBTQ equality group One Iowa. “But we are still very disappointed by it.”

Read more here.

Read Full Post »

Field

“What a special ribbon-cutting ceremony this week, as community members came together to celebrate the end of Build 220 construction at the Fields of Dreams, the varsity baseball field, and the new multi-purpose turf field at BHS!

These new and improved spaces will be used by BHS and youth athletic teams, as well as physical education classes. Thank you to the Barrington 220 community for supporting the March 2020 referendum, which made this work possible, as well as the many donors who enabled the district to install wonderful enhancements to the various spaces!”

More photos here.

Read Full Post »

Illinois-graduates-most-students-even-though-a-vast-majority-arent-reading-or-math-proficient

Thirty-two state lawmakers have stepped up their efforts to save the Invest in Kids Act, Illinois’ tax credit scholarship for more than 9,000 students.

The House members, all Republicans, have signed a letter indicating their support for the program, which, as we’ve reported, is in danger of being killed by anti-school-choice lawmakers. Lawmakers will decide this month whether or not to extend the program as part of the budget negotiation process.

Those who’ve signed the letter support the hopes and dreams of the scholarship students from low-income, working-class families. For details of the program, see Empower Illinois’ 2022 Impact Report.

Those who refuse to show their support are effectively giving in to the teachers unions, which strongly oppose Invest in Kids and are actively pushing to end the program (see IEA’s stop vouchers in Illinois).

That refusal includes House Democrats who were asked to sign the letter but wouldn’t. Given Democrats’ lockstep support of the teachers unions, it’s unlikely any would sign anyway.

The refusal also includes eight Republican House lawmakers who have not signed: House GOP leader Tony McCombie, as well as Jeff Keicher, Dave Severin, Charles Meier, Norine Hammond, Wayne Rosenthal, Michael Marron and Amy Elik. (Wirepoints is unaware of any similar letter making the rounds in the Senate.)

These unsupportive legislators should be called out because school choice should be a slam dunk for both Republicans and Democrats. As the WSJ reported Tuesday, “The program is popular with voters. In May 2021, an ARW Strategies poll showed 61% of Illinois voters approved the tax-credit program, including 67% of state Democrats. 71% of black voters and 81% of Hispanics statewide approved of the plan.”

Not to mention, states around the country like Indiana and Iowa are greatly expanding their school choice programs and making them universal.

Read more here.

Read Full Post »

220 K

A measure that implements full-day kindergarten throughout Illinois is now awaiting to be sent to Gov. J.B. Pritzker for his signature.

State Rep. Mary Beth Canty, D-Arlington Heights, filed House Bill 2396. It passed the House in March. After several amendments in the Illinois Senate last week, the House voted to concur Friday.

State Sen. Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood, said the bill better prepares the state’s youth for the future.

“Full-day kindergarten has shown to boost academic gains and prepare children for the social and emotional demands of early elementary,” Lightford said. “This can provide students and their families with sufficient support and opportunities in their early education career.”

During Senate committees, state Sen. Dan McConchie, R-Hawthorn Woods, asked about the potential costs on lower-income school districts.

“For them, it’s just an issue of having space,” McConchie said. “They are going to have to build eight classrooms to be able to do this. That is not something they will be able to do in short order. Plus, it will be a million dollars a year to fund this, and they want to make sure they are doing it in a responsible manner.”

The measure phases the policy in over two years so schools can garner funding for the change, which is more than half the state’s schools, according to state Rep. Patrick Windhorst, R-Harrisburg.

More here.

Read Full Post »

VBH Change 1

According to the Chicago Tribune report, Barrington Hills lost 87 residents between 2020 and 2022 representing a change of -2.1%.

People constantly come and go, but new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show that Chicago lost about 81,000 people, or just under 3% of its population, from 2020 to 2022. Despite the decline, the city retained its position as the nation’s third most populous city, after New York City and Los Angeles, in 2022. Houston was ranked fourth.

Chicago’s population as of July 1, 2022, was estimated at 2,665,039, with changes calculated from the estimated base of April 1, 2020.

The census also estimates that Illinois lost more than 230,000 people, or about 1.8%, in that time. Much of the reported decline — about 176,000 — came in the Chicago metropolitan area, which covers 14 counties including Cook and the collar counties, and extends into Indiana and Wisconsin.

Read the Tribune’s county by county report here, but know that the numbers they reported are constant for all four counties in Barrington Hills.

Read Full Post »

220 Admin

The District 220 Board of Education meets this evening at 7:00 PM at the District Administration Center, 515 W. Main Street. Topics on their agenda include:

  • Consideration for the Board of Education to authorize the Assistant Superintendent of Business Services/CSBO to approve contracts for the procurement of natural gas and electricity and to elect and designate the price terms of such contracts. The price terms of such contracts shall not exceed the rate of forty-four cents ($0.4400) per therm for natural gas and 6.9 cents ($0.069) per kilowatt hour for electricity, and for periods not to exceed 36 months.
  • Consideration to Approve BHS Trip to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario

A copy of the agenda can be viewed here. The meeting will be livestreamed on the district YouTube channel.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »

%d bloggers like this: