The school board for District 97 will be voting on an important part of middle-school math at its meeting on Dec. 10, and few people in the community have noticed.
Specifically, the board will be voting on the “Access to Algebra” program, a renaming and updating of the “Middle School Math Enrichment Program.” This program helps students skip a year of middle-school math, either by testing out based on the MAP test or passing a supplemental class.
As important context for this program, D97 has cut back its offerings for advanced math. Specifically, as recently as last school year, both Brooks and Julian each taught 10th grade math to many eighth-graders, with three 10th grade math classes at each middle school. The results show up in our high school’s enrollment statistics: this year’s 9th grade class at District 200 includes 130 students in 11th grade math.
However, this year, the middle schools in D97 no longer offer a single 10th grade math class. Eliminating the highest level of math offered is a major change for the middle schools, but it has largely flown under the radar in the community.
To be fair, D97’s eighth-graders can still take 10th grade math at the high school, but D97 makes it extremely difficult for students to qualify for that. The proposed “Access to Algebra” program, as well as its predecessor from prior years, is available to almost all students, fifth through seventh grade, but explicitly excludes those who are already accelerated in mathematics — primarily those who skipped a year of math in elementary school.
We should all be questioning the choice of D97 to limit our children’s potential and questioning their decisions to eliminate advanced math classes. The administration and board have an opportunity to start correcting this at the upcoming board meeting. They should revive strong math options for Oak Park’s children.
To their credit, at the last board meeting, several board members asked critical questions about Access to Algebra and whether there is a better way to do things. We hope they make changes to bring back advanced math options. A simple starting point would be to allow students who accelerated in math in elementary school to participate in the Access to Algebra program.
Eric Friedman & Jenny Austin
Oak Park
- Source for D200 enrollment data: FOIA request from D200 documents that there are 27 ninth-graders in Intermediate Algebra A and 103 ninth-graders in Advanced Algebra A. This is documented as 11th grade math based on the D200 academic catalog, page 72, at https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1723228372/oprfhsorg/ma37n3oimvlubhbud6wj/2024-2025AcademicCatalog_2.pdf
- Source documenting the highest level of math in D97: https://www.op97.org/teach-learn/mathematics shows that the highest level of math offered by D97 is Integrated Math I (which is ninth grade math).
- Source documenting that Access to Algebra excludes accelerated students: Material from D97 board meeting on Nov. 12, 2024 at https://op97.diligent.community/document/dc3077ea-274b-44af-b696-c3af3d25e6f9.