Oakwood School District receives “Commendable” on Illinois Report Card

BY DANI TIETZ
dani@sjodaily.com

The Oakwood School District received a “Commendable” designation on the Illinois Report Card, which was released on Oct. 31.

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

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

Oakwood High School, Oakwood Junior High School and Oakwood Elementary received “Commendable” designations. 

With 993 students district-wide, enrollment in the Oakwood School District has held steady for two years, but is down approximately 30 students from 2015. 

The district has 42-percent low-income students, which is 6-percent lower than 2015. 

The report shows that chronic absenteeism, meaning students who miss 10-percent or more of school with or without a valid excuse doubled from 7-percent in 2018 to 14-percent in 2019. 

But chronic truism rates, 5-percent or more of school days per year without a valid excuse, decline. In 2015 4-percent of students were chronically truant and in 2016, 8-percent were. In 2017, 6-percent were chronically truant, then the percentage dropped to 5-percent in 2018 and 4-percent in 2019. 

High School drop-out percentages have held steady at 1-2 percent since 2015. 

A five-year look at 4-year graduation rates showed Oakwood High School losing a bit of steam after a 96-percent 4-year graduation rate in 2018. The 4-year rate in 2017 was 87-percent and the 5-year rate in 2019 was 94-percent.  

Prior to coming into Oakwood High School, eighth-graders at Oakwood Junior High School who pass Algebra I was at 20-percent in 2019. In 2017 and 2018, 25-percent and 17-percent of eighth-graders passed Algebra I.

As a class, 83-percent of freshmen were on track to graduate in 2019. The percentage was at 92-percent in 2018 and 91-percent in 2019 when it had risen from 79-percent in 2016.

Oakwood students see near-state-average scores on their SAT test. In 2017, students received an average score of 486.8 on the English Language Assessment part of the test and a 497 on Math. 

Math scores rose in 2018 with an average of 484.3 as did ELA scores at 480.8. In 2019, Oakwood students scored an average of 474.7  on ELA and 463.5 on Math.

Since graduating in 2019, 58-percent of Oakwood graduates have enrolled within college. That number is steady from 2018 when it was 57-percent. In 2017, the rate was 68 percent and in 2016, the rate was 64 percent.

The district spends roughly $9,300 per student enrolled. According to ISBE’s report, the district spends $9,343 per student at Oakwood High School. Expenditures per student at Oakwood Elementary are at $9,160 per student and $8,779 per student at Oakood Junior High.

The Oakwood School District was designated at a Tier 1 school for Evidence-Based Funding in 2019. At $7,151,834 Evidence-Based Funding Resources, they are at 64-percent capacity to meet the $11,134,482 Adequacy Target. 

Average class size throughout the Oakwood School District has been below the state average since 2015. Currently, the state average is 22-students per class and Oakwood is at 20 students per class on average. 

The Oakwood School District, which has a total of 61 teachers has a student to teacher ratio of 18.1 at the elementary level and 19.1 at the high school level. The state average is 18.1 at the elementary level and 19.1 at the state level.

The teacher retention rate, the 3-year average percentage of teachers returning to work  at Oakwood is at 86-percent, which is up from 71-percent in 2015.  

On average, teachers within the Oakwood School district see a lower salary than their state-wide counterparts. This has held true at least since 2015.

Currently, on average, Oakwood teachers are paid $40,224 per year. The state average is $67,049.

The percentage of teachers who are absent more than 10 days per year fell in 2019. In 2017 and 2018, 85 and 84-percent of teachers had fewer than 10 absences within the school year, but in 2019, 87-percent of teachers missed fewer than 10 days. 

In 2018 and 2019, 100-percent of Oakwood teachers have received Excellent or Proficient designations on their evaluations.

The Oakwood School District is almost in line with the state average of administration to student ratio. The state average of admins to students was 173:1 in 2019 and Oakwood was at 170:1.

Average administrator pay was also below the state average. In 2019, Oakwood administrators made an average of $78,887 whereas the state administrators made an average of $109,592.