THE FOLLOWING IS A NEWS-GAZETTE ARTICLE BY JENNIFER BAILEY
ABOVE: Teachers, staff, and Edison School Principal Kristin Shanks (fourth from left in front) at a Monday, November 4th after school celebration for jumping two spots to a “commendable” school, as defined by standards set by the Illinois State Board of Education in their recently released school report cards.
DANVILLE — Second-year Edison Elementary School Principal Kristin Shanks and the school’s teachers and staff took a moment Monday, at the end of another busy school day, to celebrate themselves and their students.
Edison had been in a slump, with a “comprehensive” designation for the school’s Illinois State Board of Education report card for four years in a row when Shanks was appointed to the building.
This time around, they didn’t jump just one designation for the better, but two.
“My staff worked tremendously hard last year, and we tackled academics and attendance, and this year for the first time, we are ‘commendable’,” Shanks said.
There was a loud round of applause for all the employees as they gathered in the library Monday for the official news.
“Everyone pushed through. Attendance improved. Scores improved, and everyone worked as a team,” Shanks said. “This is a huge, huge thing coming out of this after all those years not being commendable.”
Shanks congratulated everyone and said how proud she is of them and happy to be part of the school. She knows how hard they have all worked.
The school started its celebrations on Monday as Shanks officially announced the hard-earned news to the staff, some of whom already knew. They marked the special occasion with some specially-designed Edison “Little Vikings” mascot cookies and with several school district administrators also in attendance.
Last week, the ISBE released updated report cards that placed every public school in the state within one of five designations, listed in descending order of desirabliity: exemplary, commendable, targeted, comprehensive and intensive.
Edison now being commendable means, as defined by the ISBE, it has no underperforming student groups though its overall performance is not within the top 10 percent of schools statewide.
Edison previously had been designated comprehensive, which meant that it was either in the lowest-performing 5 percent in Illinois or, after having completed a full school improvement cycle, a specific targeted group hadn’t shown sufficient improvement.
Shanks said they get caught up in the day to day, and sometimes don’t take the time to publicly praise their staff and students.
The staff said they appreciated having a day off today, too; however, that is due to it being Election Day.
Other staff celebratory activities will include a lunch, doughnuts and a Great Duck Hunt, where they win prizes if they find little resin ducks hidden in the building.
The students will be celebrated as well, letting them officially know of the school performance designation Wednesday. The students will have a dance party to celebrate their achievements. Then, leading up to testing, the students will be reminded as well with incentives.
Third-grade teacher Gail Lewis said, “We’ve been working really hard and concentrating on reading and math, concentrating on small groups …”
Lewis thinks a new curriculum series has helped a lot. Some attendance incentives, especially for those who really struggle to get to school, have included charts and tracking their attendance with visuals.
Lewis has taught for more than 20 years and five years at Edison.
She said she still loves teaching. She took a few years off and came back.
“I absolutely love to teach still to this day, even on the worst day,” Lewis said. “There’s still a lot of rewards in teaching.”
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