Survey says District 203 grads happy with their education

Naperville Unit District 203 alumni are giving their alma maters high marks across the board, according to a recent survey.

More than 80 percent of alumni who responded said they were provided the opportunity to become self-directed learners, collaborative workers, complex thinkers, quality producers and community contributors.

Those characteristics are the tenets of the district's mission statement, which guides curriculum decisions, according to David Chiszar, director of assessment and quality. He said the district wanted to see how the lessons translated into the rest of students' lives.

"We're preparing students for the future," Chiszar said. "They're going to go to college or not going to go to college, join the workforce ... be 60 and 70 (years old). We're not trying to educate students to be 18 years old."

Roughly 1,191 graduates from 1940 to 2007 took part in the survey.

While Superintendent Alan Leis expected most would think the traits listed in the district's mission would be valuable, he was pleasantly surprised more than 80 percent felt the district did a good job of instilling them.

Roughly 87.7 percent felt they had the opportunity to become quality producers, 85.5 percent collaborative workers, 84.9 percent self-directed learners, 83 percent complex thinkers and 80.4 percent community contributors.

Alumni from each decade also reported on what they did immediately after high school. Not surprisingly, attending a four-year college was at its highest level in the 2000s at 87.9 percent.

In addition, respondents rated the level to which their experiences in specific subject areas helped prepare them for their first year after high school.

In the 2000s, the percentage of students who found their experiences in communication arts (99.3 percent), math (100 percent), school clubs (87.5 percent) and healthy lifestyle lessons (98.6 percent) to be helpful were higher than any of the previous decades.

Meanwhile the percentage of students in this decade who felt physical education and music were helpful right after high school were at their lowest compared to other decades but still high overall at 81.4 percent and 71.1 percent respectively.

Alumni from the current decade fell in the middle of their predecessors when it came to the percentage that viewed their lessons in science (96.5 percent) competitive athletics (81.7 percent), art (71.6 percent), social science (97.1 percent) as helpful.

Chiszar acknowledges the survey is not perfect and plans to make improvements in the future to ensure questions are more clear.

But administrators say the information is still useful and will be studied by the curriculum experts at both North and Central high schools.

"Routinely surveying different groups in different years to get different perspectives to figure out how we're doing is the backbone of continuous improvement efforts," Leis said.

The district also has surveyed current students, parents and staff about the district's mission and could be ready to present those results next month.