We live in the age of data, so it might be easy to get lost in a document like the Illinois Report Card 2023-24. But for Dr. Ushma Shah, superintendent of Oak Park Elementary School District 97, it’s knowing where to look to find where the district is excelling and determining how best to address challenges.
District 97’s 10 schools were designated Commendable in the annual Illinois Report Card 2023-24 that was made public Oct. 30. Exemplary schools are those that rank in the top 10% of the state, while Commendable schools rank in the next 67%.
“Our results show that we are trending in the right direction in the aggregate,” Shah said.
“We believe that learning how to change the instructional conditions for this group of students will improve experience and outcome for all of our students,” she said. “We also encourage our educators to review multiple forms of data, to try on new approaches with courage, and to learn together to generate the kind of universal student success that has not yet been achieved.”
District 97 enrolled 5,540 students in 2023-24 — 51.8% male, 47.2% female and 1% non-binary. Over 52% were white, 16.8% were Black and 14.7% were Hispanic. A little over 25% were students with disabilities.
“Oak Park D97 has welcomed an increasing number of multilingual students, students with disabilities, students with IEPs, and low-income students as the demographics of our Oak Park community shift over time,” Shah said.
“Each of these students bring assets and their own approach to learning,” she said. “Guided by our Equity Policy, our school teams develop school improvement plans each year with their specific students in mind. Our approach is to work toward excellence targets by focusing our practice on reducing learning barriers for students.”
The District 97 Equity Policy was adopted in 2019 and provides a roadmap on how it will eliminate racial inequities and systemic disparities, and create and ensure educational opportunities for all students.
A big number, for Shah, was the over 55% proficiency (meets or exceeds learning standards) in English/Language Arts, which was a record. But data can tell a lot of tales. While ELA proficiency rates improved between 2022-23 and 2023-24, Shah said that “we hold ourselves accountable for universal student success and have also taken note that some demographic groups’ rates rose more than others.”
The district saw its highest proficiency rates in Math, with 44.8% of students meeting or exceeding standards. Once again, looking deeper into the data, which represents only a slight improvement over 2022-23, at 44%. Another concern is that Math proficiency rates for Black and Hispanic students decreased.
“We look forward to working in tandem with the Illinois State Board of Education’s new math plan as we consider how to improve math teaching and learning in our district,” she said.
Jumps in chronic absenteeism plague other area districts, but in District 97 that number dropped to 14% in 2024 from 15% the year prior. Based on the years since the Covid-19 pandemic, this number is consistent.
While chronic absenteeism rates haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels, Dr. Anna Colaner, senior director of data analytics and research, said differences by demographic group has District 97’s attention.
“Specifically, the (school year) 2024 chronic absenteeism rate for our Black students is roughly 16 percentage points higher than the white students,” Colaner said. “We currently engage with school improvement teams around different forms of data and now that the pandemic is behind us, we are taking a closer look at chronic absenteeism.”
Here’s another data point that some view as concerning: A teacher retention rate of 89.8%, differing a bit from other area districts that are well into the 90th percentile.
But look deeper, said Dr. Natacia Campbell Tominov, assistant superintendent of human resources and equity: The 2023-24 report card showed that the district’s retention rate has been on an upward trend since pre-pandemic 2019, when it was 83.9%.
“Based on previous analyses, we have been attending to Black teacher retention rates, and we are pleased to see improvement for that group,” Tominov said. “At the same time, disparities between and declines in retention rates for other racial/ethnic groups is on our radar.
“We recognize that having teachers that reflect the racial diversity of our students is likely to have a positive impact on our whole school community. We look forward to continuing successful staff initiatives as we seek to align ourselves with the district’s Equity Policy.”
Another positive is the fact that 65.2% of the district’s 459-plus teachers have a master’s degree or higher. That remained consistent with the prior four years.