North Cook News

Members of the Norridge School district recently heard a progress report from their building leadership team on improvement plans for the upcoming school year.

During the April 18 Norridge School District Board of Education meeting, the district board heard from the building leadership team at James Giles school on its progress during the school year and plans for improvements in the upcoming 2023-24 school year. 

Principal Bob Biedke, assistant principal Christine Ahrens, 6th grade ELA teacher Todd Browder, 7th grade science teacher Steven Hovorka, social studies teacher Taylor Provax, 8th grade math teacher Shanna Russell, school psychologist Brittany Tiehen, and 8th grade ELA teacher Judy Figliuolo made up the district leadership and improvement team. The team held more than 14 meetings and outside workshops to create the school improvement plan for the next year.

The team first celebrated some successes, with their almost 500 students this year, one of the largest groups in several years. They also discussed the PRRIDE program, which stands for positive, respectful, responsible, inclusive, determined and engaged, and encourages good behavior in their students. 

From all four grades, the building had 73 students receive discipline referrals, which is seen as an area to work on next year. The PRRIDE program also pairs up 5th and 7th graders and 6th and 8th graders to create community and role models within the building.

"Some of our strengths that we have at Giles is a committed staff," assistant principal Ahrens said. "Nearly 65% of our teachers have master's level degrees or higher education, and 100% of our teachers have received proficient or excellent on their performance evaluations. In addition to that, our teacher retention rate has improved from 73% in the 2020-21 school year to 93% in the 2021-22 school year."

"Giles is at or above the national average for academic achievement," Ahrens said. "Our students advance in school in both English language arts and in mathematics. We also are partnered with Ridgewood High to allow students to advance in the areas of English language arts, math and science. And then lastly, we have a great period of community involvement. Our parents are committed to partnering with staff. All parents and guardians are offered the opportunity to attend student led conferences, and we've seen a great attendance for that every year."

The board was told that from all four grades, the building had 73 students receive discipline referrals in the first trimester, with a small increase in the second trimester. This is something the school hopes to work on next year with additional behavioral supports. The top ten offenders from last year made up 40% of all major referrals and 23% of all minor referrals, representing a large portion of all behavioral issues. The school is finding ways to reach out specifically to these students to help reduce offenses, with a goal of decreasing major offenses to 30% and minor offenses to 17%. The building will be adding professional development for teachers and paraprofessionals to aid in classroom management, and work with families to improve absentee rates.