Dist. 203 aims to engage students
Sometimes it is hard to believe that more than 10 percent of the new school year is already over. In this, the first of my columns for 2008-09, I will simultaneously look back and look forward - at what we accomplished last year and what we intend to accomplish in Naperville Unit District 203 this school year. As I shared with our teachers and administrators, I think three words succinctly capture us at this time: engagement, excitement and excellence."
For decades educators and parents have talked about the importance of academic achievement. But it is only recently that educators have come to realize that the heart of student achievement and student self-concept is actually student engagement. As Joseph Renzulli, an expert on gifted education, puts it: "Research in this area is clear and unequivocal. High engagement results in higher achievement, improved self-concept and self-efficacy, and more favorable attitudes toward school and learning."
In reality, we are one of the few school districts in the nation that has found a way to measure and track student engagement over time, using random visits to all classrooms every year. Those quick visits provide a wealth of data that track changes in student engagement from year to year. Because data from across the district is showing an increase in student learning "conversations" and more time spent in student-directed learning, we are able to monitor to what extent students are actually engaged in their own learning.
Building on this success, this year we will expand teacher training opportunities around how to differentiate or vary instruction for all levels of students and how to better track which interventions can best help each child learn better.
Because parent engagement is almost as important as student engagement, we are moving our Talk203 e-mail notification system to a new software vendor to improve communication to all of our families using data within the student registration system. And the debut of our new "virtual backpack" will provide more information about community events directly to parents, while reducing paper and the large amount of staff time previously devoted to copying and distributing this information (go to www.naperville203.org/parents-students/VirtualBackpack.asp).
It is easy to see why this will be a year of excitement, as we will begin the various facilities projects that our voters were so kind to approve last February. We will have our groundbreaking at Mill Street Elementary on Tuesday, Sept. 23. Improvements to Naperville North will begin soon after, and we will break ground on our new Early Childhood Center this winter. While students at Naperville Central will see signs of work during this school year, the first wave of bulldozers are expected as soon as graduation is over. Those renovations were projected to take four summers to complete, but we are working with our construction manager to evaluate whether a shorter building cycle is possible.
Finally, continuing to focus on excellence is a hallmark of District 203. This summer we learned that our last graduating class produced the highest ACT scores in district history, and we can all be proud that. Of the more than 1,700 students who took Advanced Placement exams last May, 86 percent received a score of 3 or better, which can translate to college credit. That is a truly phenomenal achievement and a testament to our students' ability to succeed at college-level work while still in high school.
These are just some of the ways this school year in District 203 will highlight engagement, excitement and excellence. It again will be fun to update you, our Daily Herald readers, on developments in each of these areas during the remaining 90 percent of this school year.
&bull Alan Leis is superintendent of Naperville Unit District 203. His column appears monthly.