The Illinois State Board of Education recently released school report cards. They show how Illinois, each school and each district in the state are doing based on a wide range of goals like attendance, graduation rate and test scores.
Teutopolis Unit 50 is composed of a grade school (pre-k through sixth grade), junior high school (grades seventh and eighth) and high school. With 1,117 total students, the grade school and junior high school received the commendable designation, while the high school received an exemplary designation for the second year in a row.
Superintendent Matthew Sturgeon said that those in grades 3 through 8 meet or exceed state standards in English Language Arts (ELA), and 60.2% of students in those grades meet or exceed state standards in math. He also announced that the high school increased 13 percentage points in students meeting or exceeding the state standards in ELA and an almost 5 percentage point increase in math.
“Our math scores and our reading scores are tremendous, and they are each year, and hence why we got the national blue ribbon award” last year, added Teutopolis Junior High School Principal Patrick Drees.
The high school students outperformed the state average SAT score by 163%, officials said. However, the school will be switching to the ACT this year. The school uses two programs, Horizon and IXL, to help prepare students for the test.
Horizon is a practice ACT that students will take three times, explained Teutopolis High School Principal Tanner Lawson. Students will take it the second time this year on Dec. 5 and 6. IXL is a program used to build personal plans for individual students in math, science and English.
“Most teachers have them work on two skills a week. We’re getting ready to put in an intervention time in the second semester,” said Lawson. “It’ll be two days a week where … students will have the ability or access to it with no instruction for 20 minutes to either focus on data for the Horizon test that they take and will get back or to build upon mastering skills and concepts through IXL.”
When it gets closer to the ACT, the high school teachers will teach the students pacing strategies, how to interpret scientific graphs and how to pick out important information in story problems. These will all help the students become more comfortable with the test.
“I think a lot of kids aren’t used to the time that that test takes, so with some strategies and this practice three times a year, I think when we get to April, it should pay some dividends for us and move the needle a little bit more,” said Lawson.
According to the online report card, the district’s chronic absenteeism rate is 2.4%, which is one of the categories the Illinois State Report Card assigns school designations. Lawson explained that the school staff is highly encouraging kids to regularly come to school.
“Chronic absenteeism kind of took some points away from us this year on our overall score, so we’re really encouraging kids to come to school regularly and learn,” said Lawson.
When asked where he’d like to see improvements in the Junior High, Drees said there is always room for improvement.
“Teutopolis Junior High School is truly grateful for what we’ve been able to achieve so far, but we know there’s always room for improvement and growth. Our commitment is to strive to get better every day,” said Drees.
“We’re good, but we’re not perfect, so we’re going to continue building on that,” said Lawson.