OPRF shows consistency with ‘commendable’ rating on Illinois Report Card
If results are painted with a broad brush, the word would be "consistency" for Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200 on the annual Illinois Report Card 2023-24 that was made public Oct. 30.
Key data points such as graduation rate and ninth grade on track were on par with the 2022-23 school year, and in both cases grew slightly. Average class size continued its drop, and the district was once again rated as "commendable," with an overall index score of 90.36.
Exemplary schools are those that rank in the top 10% of the state, while commendable schools rank in the next 67%. OPRF scored 89.53 in 2023.
"We're right there on the edge," superintendent Greg Johnson said. "We're less than one point away from being an exemplary school according to the state benchmark."
The area that stuck out, however, was chronic absenteeism, which nearly doubled from 11.1% in the 2022-23 school year to 20.3% last year. Chronic absenteeism shows the percentage of students who miss 10% or more of school days per year either with or without a valid excuse.
"It's likely for a variety of reasons, and hard to narrow down to one particular cause," Johnson said about the increase. "A part of it is that our attendance and data teams have really focused on this metric internally and have enhanced some of how we're tracking it for the state. That may have caused us to catch and report more students who were absent than in previous years.
"Notably, though, what we see is a return to a number that is very much in line with the norm for larger high schools throughout the state. Our efforts to support students who are showing early signs of truancy and engage them and their families in attendance plans have increased this year, and we will continue to focus on this critical area."
The key, statistically, Johnson said, is context. That 11.1% chronic absenteeism rate in 2022-23 was "a bit of anomaly," he said.
"You look at the data, the 20.3% is what we were in the 2020-21 school year," he said. "So this is kind of reversion to pre-pandemic."
For context, he said. chronic absenteeism sat at 20.5% in the 2020-21 school year, and 19% the year before that.
"Addressing chronic absenteeism is challenging for schools because we do not hold sole control over students coming to school," added OPRF principal Lynda Parker. "That is why partnering with families through regular conversations and attendance goal setting when there are concerns about class absences is the approach we take to changing mindset about missing school.
"We believe in the importance of being in class every day, not only for the learning benefits, but also for the growth of personal-social skills that comes from the daily interaction with peers. Attending school positively impacts the holistic development and well-being of the child."
OPRF enrolled 3,226 students in 2024, 47% of whom are female, 50.7% male and 2.2% non-binary. More than 51% reported they are white, while 19% said they are Black and 15.4% said they are Hispanic. Nearly 20% said they were low-income. That was up from 18.5% in 2023. Johnson said that those numbers were consistent from the prior school year.
More than a third of OPRF students, or 37.5% are enrolled in Advanced Placement coursework. Of those enrolled students, 51.5% report they are Asian, while 46% said they are white, and a mere 16.9% reported they are Black.
Johnson said the metric that in his mind carries the most weight is the junior class's performance on the SAT exam. The SAT is an admission test accepted by all U.S. colleges and is intended to determine a student's level of college readiness in the academic subjects of English/language arts and math.
About 37.5% of ELA students scored at Level 4, which exceeds proficiency, up from 27.8% in 2023. Almost 20% scored at Level 4 in math, compared with 17.5% in 2023.
"Since the pandemic, we have to watch how [it] has affected the kids," he said. "We benefit here from having many, many kids challenge themselves academically and this jump we see in the SAT is something we're really excited about."
More than 10% of students scored at Level 1 in ELA, the lowest level that indicates students partially meet standards, while 21.4% were at Level 1 in math, down from 27.3% in 2023.
Average class size continues to drop, to 21.8 students compared to 23.5 two years ago. Graduation rate jumped slightly, from 94.8% in 2023 to 95.4% in 2024, while ninth grade on track also increased, from 88.1% in 2023 to 89.8% in 2024.
"We put that in the category of consistent," Johnson said.
Johnson said he is presenting the data to the board of education on Nov. 21. What does he anticipate its reaction will be?
"On one hand, it's hard to predict, but I would generally believe the overall take on this will be pleased that we're relatively consistent," he said, "but also wanting to see continued improvements.
"We are not, and should not, be satisfied."
The meeting will begin at 7:30 p.m. No. 21 in room 2163, and will be livestreamed on the district's YouTube channel.
