LaGrange District 102

D102 Families,

If you are anything like me, change might make you nervous, especially change that is not explained well. With all the construction happening around our school district and the upcoming shift of our sixth graders to the Junior High, it’s important to clearly communicate information about this transition, as well as the priorities driving the decision-making process. That is my goal with this communication.

I apologize in advance for the length of this message. To make it easier to find information that you might be searching for, I’ve underlined and bolded the major topics below:

• District Priorities for Decision Making

• Renew D102 Update

• Plans for the 6-8 Junior High Experience and Transition

• Preparing the Staff and Students for the Junior High Structure

• Elementary School Transition to K-5 and Instructional Considerations

• Elementary Specials Minutes 27-28

• Next Steps

District Priorities for Decision Making

Our District priorities are stated in our D102 Strategic Plan. Here are the goal-specific questions we focus on when confronted with a difficult or even controversial decision:

Does a decision…

• Goal 1 - Strengthen programs that ensure middle school and high school readiness?

• Goal 2 - Close the achievement gap and/or enhance a culture of inclusion and belonging?

• Goal 3 - Strengthen a positive, collaborative working environment that fosters belonging, trust, and respect?

• Goal 4 - Improve or establish school-community partnerships?

• Goal 5 - Maintain fiscal responsibility; create financial transparency and/or accountability?

• Goal 6 - Modernize facilities to support instructional and structural needs?

While change often causes nervousness and creates challenges, I also like to remember that change creates opportunities. Case in point is the multitude of new opportunities in all our schools made possible by the structural changes to each building. Not only will our campuses be safer than they were before and more structurally sound, but they will also have new instructional spaces designed specifically to enhance the school experience for all of our students. Despite the delays, which I recognize and agree are quite frustrating, we are enduring a positive change that will make a significant difference for our current students and the generation to come.

Brief Renew D102 Update:

I have asked each of the principals of buildings under construction to provide updates in their weekly newsletters. For the rest of the community, here is a quick summary and a ‘look-forward’ to the current RenewD102 projects.

• All new and renovated spaces at Forest Road are complete and open. There are still a few cosmetic ‘punch list’ items to complete over weekends and during breaks.

• While the Barnsdale interior is complete, the exterior addition is still in progress and will be complete in December. We are preparing to transition classes into the new classroom spaces before the beginning of semester two. The new Kindergarten/Pre-K playground will open this week.

• The Cossitt gym addition is finally in full swing, and we continue to target March 1 as the completion date. This would include the new gym-adjacent restrooms. The front of Cossitt now has a stormwater retention system - completed last week - which should mitigate street flooding on and around Cossitt Ave.

• The new three-story classroom addition behind Park JH is on target for completion by June.

• Additionally, we have started Phase 2 internal work at Park, Ogden, and Congress Park in spaces that do not affect instruction. Any work we can begin or complete before June leads to a more focused and timely summer construction schedule and a smoother start to the school year.

I want to recognize how frustrating construction delays are. I am sure that some of you have lost trust in the process. To be honest, that is where I was about two months ago. But as a person and a District leader who values continuous improvement, I can assure you that I have taken steps to ensure that the timelines shared above are as accurate as possible. D102 has insisted on more trades and labor on all job sites 6 days a week. At the end of the summer, we started requiring revised completion schedules every Monday, and our Owner’s Rep from Consertus takes the lead on managing those schedules and holding our construction company accountable. We are taking actions to avoid the kind of delays we saw in the first phase of construction.

Plans for the Junior High Experience and Transition

What does a Junior High experience look and feel like with grades 6-8?

1. We are building the 27-28 class schedule for all three grades around a Team Model. This means that while all students in a particular grade will be in lunch, electives, PE, music, language and flex with a wide variety for students, each grade level will have three core (100 student) teams guided by four core content teachers and 1-2 resource teachers all sharing the same students. This traditional ‘Middle School Model’ makes it possible for teachers to collaborate, plan, and intervene with all their students in a focused way. Not only do the teachers have a common collaboration time, but they can also discuss their team of students' needs in specific terms.

2. For the last two years, we have been expanding the elective opportunities for all Park students. The plan for 6th-grade students is to provide an exploratory rotation through all elective options during their 6th-grade year, and then offer elective choices in grades 7 and 8 across all six exploratory areas. At this time, we are planning for the following six elective options, which are all aligned with elective options at LT: Art, Drama, Music, STEM, Technology, and Entrepreneurship.

3. As we communicated last year during our staffing presentation to the Board of Education, we plan to use an exploratory language model for grade 6 students to provide exposure to all three of our language offerings: Spanish, French, and American Sign Language. All three are aligned with language options at LT, and upon successful completion, students will be placed in second-year language classes during their freshman year. Sixth-grade students would take a quarter of each language as an introduction and a quarter in spelling/etymology to shore up English language skills. It’s important to note that we will also continue to offer a Spanish Language Arts class at each grade level for those students already proficient in Spanish - either through our Dual Language program or as their home language. The goal of this shift was not to take away valuable language exposure from elementary students, but rather to create a consistent (daily), comprehensive, and aligned language curriculum that all students can participate in.

How are we preparing the staff and students for this new Junior High structure?

The transition to Junior High must be intentional and thoughtful. We know that there are a lot of emotions - from both students and parents - during this transition. Because we are adding two new grades to Park in SY 27-28, we are planning extra opportunities for students to visit Park and get used to Park expectations during this school year.

Because we knew this shift was coming, we started identifying staff last year who will be making the transition to the Junior High. They are already involved in curriculum and team meetings, and they will be involved in several Park Traditions throughout the rest of the year. It’s also worth noting that we selected new curriculum materials last year with this transition in mind. This means that the current 6th grade teachers - many of whom are coming to Park in SY 27-28 - have already been using the Junior High curriculum and resources.

For students in grades 5 and 6, we are creating multiple opportunities to visit Park throughout semester 2 of this year. The current Park 7th graders, as well as the administration and staff, are planning orientation activities and experiences to make sure all new Park students feel like they are prepared to do their best on day one and that they have a school where they belong. You will hear more details from our Park Principal, Mr. McGuire, as well as your child’s Elementary School Principal.

Elementary School Transition and Instructional Considerations

What will D102 Elementary Schools look like as we shift to a Grade 1-5 model?

The most significant change for next school year will be the addition of a weekly STEM block for all students in grades K-5. We are building a STEM lab in each school for this very purpose. We plan for each student to have a hands-on STEM experience for at least 60-70 minutes each week. This will augment and make consistent the Science Center time that students have experienced in D102 for many years. The new STEM teachers (one at each building) have already been identified and are hard at work on the curriculum in order to be ready for the new D102 STEM program in SY 27-28.

With a priority of ensuring middle school readiness, here are some of the additional considerations that we are working through as we design the entire instructional program for next year:

Maintain or increase student opportunities to engage with core and encore (Specials) programming.

Maintain student access to enrichment, challenge, and/or intervention.

Honor consistent collaboration and planning time for our staff. For those unfamiliar with this, planning and collaboration time for elementary school teachers is created by blocking specials (e.g., 35 minutes of art and 35 minutes of music give a classroom teacher or a grade-level team 70 minutes of planning/collaboration time).

Maintain fiscal responsibility for our taxpayers by shifting staff between buildings when possible, rather than simply doubling staff.

Retain our amazing teaching staff

Given these priorities, one of the last important decisions we need to consider is time allotted to Elementary School Specials minutes.

I recognize that there has already been a lot of community discussion about this topic, so I would like to outline the scenario we are currently considering.

To maintain the closest version of the current elementary schedule while preserving opportunities for student movement and enrichment during Specials, we drafted a schedule that increases Specials minutes. The additional time for students in grades 1-5 (SY 27-28) is close to the time that Specials instructors currently spend with all students in grades 1-6. The following is the Specials plan for SY 27-28. Please note: these shifts apply to the Elementary Schools; we are not currently planning for Early Childhood changes at Barnsdale.

While we have been able to increase instructional minutes to ELA over the last three years, shifting to this Specials structure will result in a 5-10 minute a day reallocation of core instructional minutes into the Specials. This time will not be shifted from any single subject, but rather spread out across all subjects throughout the week. It’s also worth noting that all students will now have gained 70 minutes of weekly STEM time.

Next Steps

I took the opportunity to discuss this with parents at the Parent-Teacher Advisory Council (PTAC) meeting last week and received constructive feedback. Additionally, I will discuss it at our PTO Leaders meeting later this week. I have been in ongoing conversation with our Board of Education, who have provided excellent feedback.

Each year at the February Board meeting, I present a staffing plan to the BOE for consideration. At that point, we begin to firmly establish this direction for the 2027-28 school year with the posting of all new staff positions. I am proud to say that we will continue to diligently seek feedback on major changes and new opportunities as they arise. Thank you for your ongoing patience and your support of the great things happening for your students in D102.