St. Joseph #169 receives “Commendable” on Illinois Report Card

BY DANI TIETZ
dani@sjodaily.com

St. Joseph CCSD #169 School District received a “Commendable” designation on the Illinois Report Card, which was released on Oct. 30.

Each year, the Illinois State Board of Education gives schools summative designations based on data provided.

Schools receive Exemplary School, Commendable School, Underperforming School, and Lowest-Performing School designations.

St. Joseph Elementary and St. Joseph Junior High School received “Commendable” designations.

With 822 students district-wide, enrollment in the St. Joseph School District has declined by about 70 students over the last five years.

The district has 15-percent low-income students, which is near typical.

The report shows that chronic absenteeism, meaning students who miss 10-percent or more of school with or without a valid excuse, remained the same over the last two years at 8-percent.

Chronic truism rates, 5-percent or more of school days per year without a valid excuse, is also steady at 0-2-percent over 5 years.

The district spends roughly $8,700 per student enrolled. According to ISBE’s report, the district spends $9,237 per student at St. Joseph Jr. High School, $8,348 per student at St. Joseph Elementary.

The St. Joseph School District was designated at a Tier 2 school for Evidence-Based Funding in 2019. At $6,249,542 Evidence-Based Funding Resources, they are at 72-percent capacity to meet the $8,713,911 Adequacy Target.

The St. Joseph School District obtained class sizes below the state average of 22 students per class in 2019 after four years of being above the state average.

The St. Joseph School District, which has a total of 55 teachers has a student to teacher ratio of 18.1, which is right at the state average.

The teacher retention rate, the 3-year average percentage of teachers returning to work at St. Joseph hit an all-time high of 93-percent in 2019.

On average, teachers within the St. Joseph School District receive a lower salary than their state-wide counterparts. This has held true at least since 2015.

Currently, on average, St. Joseph teachers are paid $54,402 per year. The state average is $67,049.

The percentage of teachers who are absent more than 10 days per year rose in 2019. In 2018, 80-percent of teachers had fewer than 10 absences within the school year, but in 2019, 73-percent of teachers missed fewer than 10 days.

In 2018 and 2019, 97-percent of St. Joseph teachers have received Excellent or Proficient designations on their evaluations.

The St. Joseph School District ranks below the state average of administration to student ratio. The state average of admins to students was 173:1 in 2019, but St. Joseph’s ratio was 228:1.

Average administrator pay was above the state average. In 2019, PV-O administrators made an average of $112,244 whereas the state administrators made an average of $109,592.