ABOVE: Meade Park students attend the NCJAA Division II Basketball Tournament last Spring at Danville Area Community College.
The recent release of the Illinois State Board of Education statewide report card showed some positive numbers Danville District 118 took note of, particularly at Meade Park Elementary School. District 118’s Chris Rice, who served as Meade Park principal from 2016 to 2022, recalled to Neuhoff Media that back in 2018 Meade Park found themselves part of the state cohort where students were operating at the “comprehensive level.” Rice says that meant, as far as making progress and improving state test scores, Meade Park was ranking in the bottom 5% of the state.
But today, through the pandemic and everything else, Meade Park finds itself with a “commendable” designation from the ISBE. Rice says that overall, Meade Park students are showing 51% of growth in improving scores. And that includes a nearly 60% improvement among African American students, which checks in at higher than the state average.
So how did they get there? Rice says that after the trouble was noticed in 2018, the school took a proactive approach, seeking interactive opportunities to really make a difference with the students.
AUDIO: They were receiving supports based of some of their deficient skill areas. We had an after school program for students to receive additional supports in the areas of reading and math. And probably one of the biggest factors, I think, is Meade Park ran their own summer school program. The day the school year ended, we started right with summer school; with the same teachers they had throughout the school year.
Rice says no one was turned away from the summer school program, but what they especially looked for was students who had been struggling during the school year that were showing progress towards the end; with the hopes that the summer school program would keep them from losing their positive momentum. Rice says the efforts were applied to all Meade Park grade levels, and now, when students become old enough to take the state tests, the work is paying off.
AUDIO: Now, when they take the state assessments, that’s monitoring the growth of third and fourth graders. But, definitely, just because of the trend and the direction the data’s going; it’s students that are making growth at every level, so they’re being reflective in those test scores when they go to measure that.
Chris Rice now serves District 118 as Director of Early Learning.
