District #205 school board approves new goals

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A series of new goals were approved by the District 205 Board of Education at Monday night’s meeting.

The goals shift the focus from the board from getting the district financially stable and “right-sized” to now focus on improving grades and improving the school experience.

The board approved four goals ranging from getting all students “college-ready” even if a student’s path doesn’t take them to college to get all students performing at or above state standards on all grade levels.

One area the board is very focused on improving is the district’s chronic absenteeism issue. Superintendent Dr. John Asplund says that the district’s outreach workers are working to get those kids to attend classes every day.

He says it’s important that the district state this goal now because a number of students just don’t come to school.

“When our outreach workers go to the homes they are, in many cases, abused by family members who are not greeting them warmly,” Asplund shared with the board and those in attendance. ” And yet, these saints of human beings still continue to go back and go to those houses and work with those families as much as possible. There’s a level of hostility that they should never have to put up with for a second and yet they do it every day.”

Board member Tianna Cervantez, who is the longest-serving school board member, says that student performance has always been a focus.

“It’s not as if we have not been paying attention to it. I do want to make sure folks understand we have been paying attention to it. But as to other board member comments, we have had a lot of external challenges that have drawn attention to more immediate needs and not always the long-term needs that we’re looking at right now.”

The board’s new goals include benchmarks for tracking and measuring the progress being made.

 

The board’s goals are as follows:

Goal #1: The ultimate District Goal is to eliminate chronic absenteeism/truancy; therefore, the District will create interim goals to achieve this ultimate goal by the end of the 2024-2025 school year. By the end of the 2022-2023 school year, the rate of chronic absenteeism/truancy will be no greater than 8% of the entire student population. By the end of the 2023-2024 school year, the rate of chronic absenteeism/truancy will be no greater than 4% of the entire student population.

Goal #2: The ultimate District Goal is for all students to be performing at or above state standards in all areas and in all grades; therefore, the District will create interim goals to achieve this ultimate goal by the end of the 2026-2027 school year. By the end of the 2021-2022 school year, no less than 30% of all students in all grades and all subgroups will meet or exceed state standards as measured by the IAR assessment and SAT assessment in Reading and Mathematics.

Goal #3: The ultimate District Goal is for all students to successfully complete Algebra I by the end of 8th grade; therefore, the District will create interim goals to achieve this ultimate goal by the end of the 2025-2026 school year. By the end of the 2023-2024 school year, no less than 25% of all 8th Grade students in all IAR identified subgroups will successfully complete Algebra I.

Goal #4: The ultimate District Goal is for all students to be considered “College Ready”, even if those students do not plan to attend college; therefore, the District will create interim goals to achieve this ultimate goal by the end of the 2026-2027 school year. By the end of the 2022-2023 school year, no less than 35% of all GHS graduating Seniors in all IAR identified subgroups will be considered “College Ready”.

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