Students are not the only ones who receive report cards — Warren Township High School District 121 also received one from the Illinois State Board of Education. Members of the district’s administration went over the results of the Illinois Report Card at the district’s Nov. 21 Board of Education meeting.
The district celebrated that it has record high graduation rates, according to the report card, which said that 95% of the district’s students graduate.
One of the main areas of concern that was highlighted in the school’s report card was that the district, along with districts across the rest of the state, was seeing a decrease in math proficiency, as well as a decrease in college readiness, in regards to math.
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“We’re wondering now if this is just a COVID impact,” said District 121 Superintendent Daniel Woestman. “There definitely was an impact on the way we felt about how we were seeing math in college applications as soon as we hit COVID and those years immediately after COVID. I’m guessing we’re going to see that for a few more years, probably.”
Although the district is currently seeing lowered proficiency, they believe that it is a trend that will be turned around within the next few years.
“With each passing year, those kids are coming in more and more prepared, so we’re able to bring them in further and further along,” said Christopher Geocaris, the district’s assistant superintendent of instructional services. “We’re seeing some positive indicators, but we have seen a dip in proficiency over time.”
Geocaris said that the administration is working with the math department to adjust the curriculum to “meet student needs and make sure the kids have the best opportunities possible.”
While the district’s math proficiency noticeably went down over the past few years, there has been an increase in the district’s science proficiency, which Woestman attributes to differences in the ways that testing is done.
“Science proficiency is a bit different,” Woestman said. “The test is a bit newer. Generally, we feel pretty good about science.”
District 121 also saw high levels of college reading and writing readiness, which Geocaris attributed to the ways the subjects build on skill sets that students would have already developed.
“English and social studies, you really take the same set of skills and build,” Geocaris said. “You’re doing the same skills, but you’re doing them more, and more in depth, year after year.”
Additionally, the district expressed concern about decreasing college enrollment rates for its students, which is also a state trend. Geocaris also believes that this was impacted by COVID, and will resume to normal levels in the future.
“Our enrollment in CLC (College of Lake County) is down a little bit, we actually saw our biggest dip a couple of years ago,” Geocaris said. “We saw a bit of an uptick, but it’s not where it was before COVID yet.”
During the meeting, Board President Paul Schulz, asked if this could be a result of more students going into the trades, but Geocaris said that he’s not sure if that’s a factor.