November 8th, 2024
Dear Kenwood Families,
Happy Friday! I hope this message finds you doing well. This has been an eventful week with the local, state and national elections. We’ve had some fun engaging in our own elections at Kenwood to decide on our favorite Donut. Students and staff have been taking part in some fun campaigning efforts. You’ll have to ask them what was ultimately the most popular donut. On Monday, we recognize Veterans Day and we thank all of our Veterans and their families for their service and sacrifice for our country. This coming week, we also look to celebrate our Star students of the month. We’ll be recognizing our students during our Star student assemblies.
The last week of October the State released the scores from the spring 2024 administration of the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR). These scores are found in the Illinois School Report Card. We received our results and in reviewing these results we recognized strengths in ELA achievement with 39% of students meeting or exceeding expectations compared to the district at 29.3% and the state at 41.2%. We also recognized an area of focus for our school in Math achievement with 26.5% of students meeting or exceeding expectations compared to the district at 22.7% and the state at 28.4%. Another area of focus for our school was in the area of Black student growth in Math as recognized by 36.6% growth compared to the district at 45.4% and the state at 50%.Growth of students is measured relative to other students in the state with a similar scale score. Another important part of our report card data focuses on chronic absenteeism. While we did see a reduction from 34% in 2023 to 35.2% in 2024 this still represents an area for improvement. Improved student attendance is directly linked to improvements in student achievement.
As a result, the designation of our school changed from Commendable from the past several years to Targeted for Black students. Our focus for this year continues to be on improving the growth and achievement of all students, but with a particular focus on our Black students. We invite your participation and support in the area of absenteeism to help support our students’ achievement. If you have any questions please feel free to reach out.
Have a great weekend!
Sincerely,
Dr. Trevor Nadrozny
Principal