River Forest School District 90 is celebrating their performance score amidst the release of this year’s Illinois Report Cards, with two schools earning a top score.
The two elementary schools in the district, Lincoln and Willard Elementary, earned “exemplary” designations, meaning the school performed in the top 10% of schools statewide with no underperforming student groups.
Roosevelt Middle School earned a “commendable” rating, a score given to schools in Illinois that had no underperforming student groups, a graduation rate higher than 67%, and whose performance is not in the top 10% of schools statewide.
“We celebrate these summative designations because of what they represent,” said Dr. Ed Condon, superintendent of D90. “Extraordinary teaching and learning across our school community.”
For the most part, the district saw scores surpassing those of the state’s average, which validated the community’s belief that D90 provides a great education for River Forest families. While overall the district has seen a decrease in enrollment, it is still maintaining healthy numbers and a steady demographic rate. However, when compared to state’s percentages, D90 has fewer Black and Hispanic students, while reporting a higher district number of white students.
D90 enrolls 1,363 students across the three schools. Enrollment at Roosevelt increased slightly, growing to 672 from 659 last year. Lincoln Elementary enrolled 345 students this year, while Willard Elementary enrolled 346 students. Both schools had an average class size of 19 students.
“Our schools thrive thanks to talented educators, committed staff, and inspiring school leaders. They flourish thanks to caring families who champion children’s learning, board leaders who provide strong governance, and the community who ensures our schools have the resources necessary for success,” Condon said. “Most of all, our schools excel due to our amazing students, who bring a love of learning to school each day.”
A more in-depth report by Wednesday Journal will be coming in the following week.
English language arts and math
Both elementary schools surpassed the state’s average proficiency scores. Willard Elementary scored a 67.8% compared to the state’s average of 49.8%. Lincoln Elementary also showed improvement, increasing their score by 5.2% from the previous year, scoring a 65.8%.
In math, Lincoln scored 71%, an 18.9% increase over 2022. Willard scored 62.2%, a big improvement over last year. In contrast, the state’s average proficiency rate for 2023 was 49.7%. Both schools easily surpassed that.
Roosevelt Middle earned a 52.9% proficiency score for 2023, a slight decrease from 2022 at 54.5%. The middle school still outperformed the state’s proficiency rate for the past two years, which were 49.8% in 2023 and 50% in 2022.
The middle school, however, improved their math score, receiving a 56.5% in contrast to 2022’s score of 49.6%, a 6.9% increase. This year’s score was also higher than the state’s average.
Absenteeism
Despite being under the state’s absentee score of 28.3%, Roosevelt Middle saw an increase in their “chronic absentee” score from 2022 to 2023. According to the Illinois Report Card website, the state defines “chronic absentee” as a student who misses 10 percent of school days within an academic year, which is 18 days of an average 180-day calendar school year. This also takes into consideration excused absences as well as non-excused. The district overall received a 13.4% but all schools saw an individual increase in absences.
In 2022, Roosevelt received a score of 10.9% compared with this year’s score of 16.5%.
The score for absenteeism also increased for Lincoln, which earned a 9.5% score, compared to 2022’s 7.3%. Willard’s 10.8% rate is a jump up from the previous year’s 7.5%.
Retention rate for teachers
Following the pandemic, the education sector saw higher rates of burnout among teachers, which led to larger spikes in the number of educators leaving the field. Despite that increasing trend, which has continued into 2023, D90 scored a 91% in teacher retention in the district. That figure is calculated by the average for a three-year percentage of teachers who return to work at the same school.
