(The Center Square) – A nonprofit school information group has recognized 532 Illinois schools for positive, supportive learning environments.
GreatSchools.org announced its Thrive Awards at a time when academic proficiency numbers remain low in the state’s public school systems.
GreatSchools CEO Jon Deane said the awards were based on the state board of education’s 5Essentials survey, which looks at some of the most important characteristics of a school’s climate and culture.
“How strong the leaders are, how collaborative the teachers are, how engaged the families are, how supported the students are, and how ambitious the instruction is: these things are critical,” Deane explained.
Deane said the survey results give people the chance to learn from other schools in their community.
“That might be at the school leadership level. It might be groups of families kind of getting together to see what’s going on. We’ve seen a lot of different places where people are able to look at this data and say, ‘Let’s learn from each other. Let’s share. Let’s see what’s going on different communities in hopes of bringing some of that connectedness back to our school,’” Deane said.
According to data from the Illinois Board of Education, 27% of the state’s K-12 public-school students meet grade level standards in math. Some 35% meet grade-level standards in English and Language Arts.
Deane defended social-and-emotional learning (SEL) programs, even though Illinois public schools are languishing in academic proficiency.
Many schools added SEL to the curriculum in spite of their students’ low reading and math scores. Deane said it’s important to create an environment to get kids back to school after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Everything changed across the country. We gave people mixed messages about what was really going on, in terms of, we tell them one thing and we’re kind of doing another a little bit. Creating the space to say, ‘It really matters that you’re here. We need to get you back here.’ That probably means we’ve got to do a lot of work to look at how students are doing in their well-being and how the adults in the building are doing as well,” Deane said.
Illinois public schools have a chronic absenteeism rate of 28.3%.
Deane says that to get kids back into school so they can learn more, schools must create an environment to make sure they’re going to come back.
