North Cook News

The Northridge School District Board of Education heard district improvement plans and goals during presentations from district officials during its February meeting.

During the meeting, streamed on YouTube, Superintendent Michelle Guzik outlined three districtwide goals, including making fiscally responsible decisions for student opportunities, providing equal time for all kindergarten students' math and ELA instruction regardless of whether they are half-day or full-day, and increasing the quality of their buildings in the district.

“Our fourth goal is to provide teachers with individual prep time and providing space and time for collaborative meetings,” Guzik said during the meeting. “These are mostly over on our completed side, we completed most of this during our negotiations with the teacher contract. I left in progress with the learning opportunities because we're still always looking for opportunities for our special education teachers and the general education teachers to co-plan together.”

Guzik also pointed out during the meeting that the district has reached 33% fund balances it is now seeking additional revenue options as the district works toward its first goal. However, she noted the district hasn’t achieved any of its building improvement goals, though several projects are in the works.

“We upgrading our lighting, so whenever we upgrade a space we upgrade the lighting,” she said. “In the next three years, we are going to be looking at every surface in both of the buildings.”

Leigh School Principal Dr. Sean Rabiola focused on improvement goals for each building, pointing out that they have met the initial goal of having 60% of students meet or exceed goals on math on the NWEA during the last year, with 64% of students achieving that benchmark. The 60% goal was also in place for the ELA on testing, with 54% of students hitting that target.

“We did maintain our three-year average at 54%,” he said during the meeting. “We didn’t drop down, but we didn’t see the increase we were looking for.”

Rabiola pointed out continuing training options available to teachers and there are interventions for students and teachers for improved growth.

Giles School Principal Bob Biedke outlined goals in his building during the meeting, similar to the goals at Leigh School. He noted the school hoped to see 70% of its students meet or exceed expected growth on the NWEA in math and ELA. He noted they came up just short of the target, with 68% in math and 64% in ELA.

“We did not achieve our goal, but we had double-digit growth,” he said, noting the math success rate was up 14% and both rates were up over the average for the last three years, Biedke noted during his presentation.

The school saw success in its third goal, according to Biedke, reducing behavioral referrals with a 67% decrease, outpacing its goal of a 20% decrease in referrals compared with the three-year average.