District 69 superintendent reports improved financial, academic outlook

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Updated: March 3, 2012 8:10AM

What a difference a year makes.

In his annual State of District, delivered at the Jan. 17 district board meeting, Skokie/Morton Grove School District Superintendent Quintin Shepherd said the district made gains both academically and financially.

In his State of the District report, Skokie/Morton Grove School District 69 Superintendent Quintin Shepherd said the district made gains both academically and financially.

The report serves not only as a review but also as a plan for the future, he said.

“It’s an ongoing process,” he explained.

Listening to the report, Board President Zach Williams said he felt “a lot more comfortable in my chair this year.”

He added: “I look forward to more good news next year.”

Reasons to celebrate, Shepherd said, include an increase in the number of students who have met or exceeded state testing standards.

The decline in achievement the past few years was “a cause of great concern,” he said.

“Last year saw progress,” he noted.

As an example, Shepherd said, the number of second-grade student receiving remedial assistance who showed proficiency in math increased to 83 percent as of last month from 30 percent at the start of the school year.

He credited the “heroic effort” on the part of the staff for the positive change.

Shepherd also explained the value of a “viable curriculum.”

“It’s more than textbooks,” he noted. “We have the Treasures (reading) program, and the (national) Common Core standards. We now know what students need to master, and at what grade levels, to be successful as they move on to high school,” Shepherd said.

And while the district has that curriculum, it now must develop a balanced way to assess progress that will involve “long, detailed, complicated conversations,” he noted.

“Once assessments are in place, we will need to determine how to bring up to grade level those students who are lagging behind,” he said. “We also need to address gifted students, the ones who know the concept even before it is being taught in class. How do we challenge those students?”

Reviewing the district’s finances, Shepherd said: “In November 2010, we got to the point where we didn’t know how we were going to pay the bills if the tax-revenue payments came any later. Last year was a path we could not continue on. We would have run out of cash in 2013.”

Now the district has five-year and 10-year projections of its financial outlook, Shepherd said.

“We are on a path for a sustainable future,” he said. “In conversations with the board, we are on the path to having enough money in the education fund to cover 30 percent of annual expenses” as recommended by the Illinois State Board of Education.

What the district still needs to do is improve communications among district employees and among people in the community, Shepherd said.

“It’s one of the more difficult things to do,” he said. “We need to reach out, analyze goals and have more clearer goals. And we’re leaning more and more toward technology. This is a unified team effort.”