The District 87 school board on Wednesday heard updates on student growth and habits and the need for a gymnasium renovation project.
STAR testing, the student achievement test that shows how students progress in math and reading, shows improvement. The number of students deemed in need of interventions or other extra help is lower for all District 87 schools compared with the start of the school year.
“We got to spend a lot of time passing out awards for that high growth,” said Natalie Shumaker, director of curriculum and development.
Nicole Rummel, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, clarified what the tests are meant to track for students.
“What it's really looking at is where was their starting point for their whole class, and how much growth have they made overall,” she said.
This is different from proficiency, which District 87 previously measured to gauge student success.
“It's just about the growth,” said Rummel. “And then we have conversations with teachers and teams about digging into their individual data about specific students in their classroom to see what areas they're growing in, what areas need more instruction for specific kids ...”
The school district also is outperforming goals in regards to attendance: 92.81% compared with the 88% target set for District 87’s accountability system coming next school year. It's also within a tenth of a percentage point of the attendance for the first semester a year prior.
The top three reasons for office referrals are tardiness, excessive disruption and physical aggression. The number one reason a year ago, skipping class, is now ranked fifth. Cell phone misuse is now seventh.
South gym update
The Bloomington High School south gym, also known as the Robert Frank Sports Complex, will undergo renovations to correct a number of issues. The gym has accessibility, storage, lighting and water concerns.
The upper level wrestling area has no restrooms and no cooling. It is the only classroom space in District 87 without cooling. Locker rooms have a lack of storage space, restrooms and privacy measures. The lower level gym area has inadequate flood protections and is not ADA compliant.
Solutions to these problems were included in plans from the Farnsworth Group. They include new office space in the upper level wrestling area and new colors for locker rooms. Instead of a blue boys locker room and pink girls locker room, proposed locker rooms are purple and gold to match school colors. The boys locker room is larger to allow for more lockers.
"This will be broken down into multiple bid packages to make it smaller so that a lot of folks have a chance to bid the work," said superintendent David Mouser. "Which then, we know, drives that cost down, you know, if we can get a lot of folks to bid on it."
Schedule
Another item of business during the meeting was a first reading of the schedule for the 2026-27 school year.
An Aug. 20 start is planned for the year. Nov. 3, election day for the 2026 midterms, is not an off-day. Different from this school year, the Friday before spring break is a full day, not a half day.
