North Cook News

At its Oct. 24 meeting, the Wilmette Public Schools District 39 Board of Education heard from Administrator for Curriculum & Instruction Katie Lee who gave a report on the district’s results for the Illinois Assessment of Readiness, also known as the IAR. 

While parents had already received their individual child’s scores, this was the first publishing of the district's scores. 

“It's important to note that these are the fifth graders who struggled the prior year," Lee said. "So our sixth graders are working with them and meeting their needs from where they're starting. And they did struggle enjoying their fifth grade year and so they're continuing to work with them. So given that in mind, you know, I think this is commendable. And seventh and eighth grades did not meet the target and remained relatively consistent from spring of 2021 as far as results.”

IAR measures students’ academic performance based on grade-specific Illinois English Language Arts and Mathematics Learning standards.

There are five levels of student performance, with levels 4 and 5 equating to meeting expectations and exceeding expectations. All grades across the district have a majority of students in these performance levels in both Math and ELA and all levels for each grade and subject have a much higher percentage of students in these performance levels than the state percentage.

The ELA section of the test can be broken down into five subcategories, which are rated with a low, middle, or high-performance ranking. Based on data from these breakdowns, the district has made two of those subcategories focus areas over the last year and most grades showed a fair amount of improvement in these areas, except for grades 7 and 8. The district is now starting the subcategories examination in math this year.

The board will meet again at 7 p.m. on Nov. 21 at the Mikaelian Education Center on 615 Locust Road in Wilmette.