EDWARDSVILLE - During their work session on Nov. 12, 2024, the Edwardsville Community Unit School District #7 Board of Education reviewed recent scores on the Illinois School Report Card.
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The Illinois School Report Card considers a district’s test scores, attendance record, culture and more. Edwardsville’s 13 schools all received “commendable” designations. Superintendent Dr. Patrick Shelton explained how to access and navigate the report card’s data online.
“You can spend days in the site, looking at different levels of data,” Shelton said. “The more you click, the more information you can get to.”
The Board noted that Edwardsville High School scored less than a point away from the “exemplary” designation, which would put the school in the top 5% of high schools in Illinois.
“You can see where the line is for ‘exemplary’ and you can see where Edwardsville scored as a result,” Shelton said. “So 91.26 was the exemplary line, and 90.46 was ours, so less than a point away.”
Shelton noted that schools can improve their summative designation by focusing on certain areas where they can make “significant growth.” For example, the high school’s response rate on the climate survey was 65.76, and Shelton believes they can increase this response rate to gain a higher summative score.
“When we talk about each of these areas in every school, we look at those areas as what’s in our control and what can we really put structures in place to help others help us,” he explained.
According to the report card, District #7 has a 91% graduation rate and a 17% chronic absenteeism rate, which is when a student misses 10% or more of the school days. Shelton noted that all districts have seen their chronic absenteeism rate increase since the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a district, Edwardsville scores consistently higher than the state average on assessments like the SAT and the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) tests. Tara Fox, Director of Curriculum and Instruction, broke down some of these scores for the Board of Education.
Over the next few weeks, principals will send out information in their weekly newsletters about the Illinois School Report Card. The newsletters will overview the report card and summative designation, then dive into chronic absenteeism and next steps.
“One of the things we’re going to be doing this year for the Illinois School Report Card is, starting next week, building principals are going to be communicating some specific information about their building report card out to their families,” Shelton said. “So over the next five weeks, every family will get something specific to their building.”
To view Edwardsville District #7’s scores on the Illinois School Report Card, click here.
