Last spring Evanston Township High School took its first steps in a deliberately different journey of conflict resolution. The results are a peer-mediation initiative that the youth participants have named “Kit Voice.” Kit Voice is a peer-jury system available to student offenders as an alternative to the traditional adult-administered punishment model that has been strong […]
Category: Schools
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District 202 to trim another $1.7 million from budget for 2008-2009
By cutting $1.7 million from next year’s budget, District 202 administrators hope to avoid any more bloodletting for at least a few years. “We have anticipated another round of cuts to keep the budget balanced . . . but we have looked in every way we could to minimize the effect on the classroom and […]
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D65 Strategic Planning
The District 65 School Board will hold its strategic planning meeting on Saturday morning, Feb. 23. As a prelude to the meeting, on Feb. 11 the administration will present to the Board a report that summarizes where the District stands in meeting the goals of the five-year strategic plan it adopted in June 2002. Superintendent […]
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The Test-Score Dilemma at Districts 65 and 202
Test scores dominated a large part of the joint meeting of the District 65 and 202 School Boards held on Jan. 14. A focal point was the difference in how District 65 eighth-graders perform on the Illinois Standard Achievement Test (ISAT) and on the EXPLORE test. Paul Brinson, director of information services at District 65, […]
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Amidst Test-Score Rancor, Cooperative Efforts at Districts 65 and 202 Show Promise
Despite spending a significant amount of time debating testing issues at their recent joint meeting, the District 65 and 202 school boards managed to review some of the current efforts to increase inter-district cooperation and to ease the transition of students from eighth to ninth grades. The criteria used to place students into honors, mixed […]
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School District 65 Analyzing Racial-Balancing Methods in Light of Supreme Court Decision
On June 28, the United States Supreme Court struck down plans used by school districts in Seattle, Wash., and Louisville, Ky., that took students’ race into account in order to racially balance their schools. Both cases were decided under Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District #1. The Court’s decision was split 5-4, […]