11th grade math

Town: St. Charles

Success story: The percentage of St. Charles East and North high school juniors who met or exceeded math standards on the Prairie State Achievement Examination climbed by 4 percentage points from last year, while the state average dropped by 1 percentage point.

How it happened: Teachers put a renewed focus on how students respond to classroom instruction, made ongoing revisions to a recently implement curriculum known as College Preparatory Mathematics, and tried new classroom approaches -- including team problem-solving and group discussions.

What it plans for next year: Continue adjusting instruction and classroom format based on curriculum assessments, district data and feedback from students and teachers.

Quotes: "I give a lot of credit to the students; they're very responsible, and they want to learn." -- Sandy Ledvora, East's instructional coordinator for math and business.

"We're very excited about the changes, as well as the ones that are going to come up in the future. We're changing year by year." -- Brad Mitchell, North's instructional coordinator for math and business