Results of 5 Essentials Survey

Last year, each public school district in Illinois was required to participate in something called the 5 Essentials Survey.  This was a survey created by the University of Chicago to measure schools and districts along five factors that were found by their study to be essential to the success of a school district.  (You may remember this survey since teachers, students and parents were asked to participate.)  The survey responses were used to evaluate districts and schools in the following five areas:  Ambitious Instruction, Effective Leaders, Collaborative Teachers, Involved Families, and Supportive Environment.  The following rankings were applied to each area:  Very Strong, Strong, Neutral, Weak, Very Weak, and Low Response or N/A.

Click here for the results of the 5 Essentials Survey for Minooka 201.  Overall, Minooka 201 was rated "Neutral" in the area of Ambitious Instruction, "Weak" in the area of Effective Leaders, "Neutral" in the area of Collaborative Teachers, "Strong" in the area of Involved Families, and "Neutral" in the area of Supportive Environment.  For more information (much more information), please take a look at the entire results for Minooka 201.

Next Minooka 201 School Board Meeting

The next meeting of the Minooka CCSD 201 school board is Wednesday, May 28, 2014. The Committee of the Whole Meeting starts at 6:00 p.m. in the board room (the old library) at the Minooka Primary Center located at 305 Church Street in Minooka. The Committee of the Whole Meeting will be followed by the regular Board Meeting at 7 p.m. Both meetings are open to the public, and everyone is encouraged to attend. You can find the agenda for each of the meetings here.

Is CVA the Public School of the Future?

Take a look at Columbia Virtual Academy (see here).  CVA is a public K-12 virtual school in the State of Washington.  There are no brick and mortar buildings.  There are no school buses.  There are no passing periods.

There are of course advantages and disadvantages to everything, but here is one striking advantage to virtual schools: cost!  Familiarize yourself with a typical public school's finances, and you will see that a significant portion of the money spent is not spent IN the classroom.  It is spent ON the classroom and on transporting the students TO the classroom.  Minooka 201, for example, spent roughly $7,500 per student per year, but only about $3,700 of that (slightly less than half) is spent in the classroom.  The remainder is spent on operations and maintenance, transportation, etc. (essentially, maintaining the brick and mortar buildings and transportation to the brick and mortar buildings).  When you take into account all expenditures (including construction and debt service), Minooka 201 is currently spending roughly $10,500 per student.

Given the above financial advantages of virtual schools and the lean budgets that each state is experiencing, it is easy to see why virtual schools like CVA are being started and why they are expanding to deliver educational services to an increasing number of students.

Minooka 201 Considering New Math Program for 6th, 7th and 8th Grades

Minooka CCSD 201 is considering adoption of a new math program for 6th, 7th and 8th grades.  The program is called "Digits" and is produced by Pearson Publishing.  More information can be found at their website.  (You can even view the training videos that show how a sample lesson proceeds as well as see how the program incorporates technology.)

While a perusal of the Digits website shows a program with highly integrated use of technology, the program is not without its detractors.  Click here for an article about another school district's adoption of Digits.

In addition, this brochure and summary of a controlled trial were provided to Minooka CCSD 201.