The District 54 School Board plans to visit 20 teachers across the district to praise them for filling their classroom libraries with more than 1,000 books.

A significant body of research states that the more children read the better readers they become. As part of our district’s Literacy Task Force, we learned that experts recommend that every classroom should have 1,000 books in order to meet the wide range of abilities and interests of the children. While some of our classrooms already have a significant number of titles, many do not. With this in mind, we embarked on a campaign to fill the bookshelves in each of our rooms.

Although District 54’s SuperKids: Powered by Books Committee has been hard at work fund-raising to buy books for teachers, many of the teachers being recognized have assembled these large classroom libraries on their own – by purchasing the books themselves, scouring garage sales, purchasing Troll and Scholastic book orders, receiving some as gifts, etc.

These teachers listed below, join 195 other District 54 teachers who had previously been recognized for achieving this milestone – for a grand total of 215 teachers.

Armstrong

• Madeline Ryan

Blackwell

• Betsy Brantner
• Deb Davis
• Tracy Fowler
• Marsha Hoshko
• Adrianne Stephenson
• Katie Zordan

Collins

• Lauren Lewis
• Ellen Pape
• Rhonda Starr
• Eric Wiklund

Churchill

• Judy Stewart

Enders-Salk

• Esther Ortloff

Fox

• Chris Duncker
• Deb Moon

Link

• Lauren Legner

Keller Junior High

• Jen Chamberlin
• Judy Johnson

MacArthur

• Cristina Gonzalez
• Kristine Wahlund

Community members are invited to provide feedback on health textbooks under consideration for adoption in School District 54. The two junior high school programs being considered are

• Glencoe Teen Health
• Holt Decisions for Health

To preview the materials, visit the Rauch Center at 520 E. Schaumburg Road in Schaumburg. You will be given an evaluation form to complete as you preview the materials. Friday, Nov. 18 will be the final day for material evaluation. Materials are on display from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Rauch Center.

Materials are also being reviewed by District 54 teachers, support staff and administrators.

Click here to read the School Zone Newsletter for October 2011 which contains a column from Board Member Bill Harper, as well as a story about seven Those Who Excel awards District 54 received from the Illinois State Board of Education and information about our January open enrollment fair.

The Schaumburg Township Council of PTA’s is helping Heartland sponsor a blood drive on Thursday, Oct. 27. It will be held from 1:30-6:30 p.m. in the boardroom at the School District 54 Administration Center, 524 E. Schaumburg Road in Schaumburg.

Anyone between the ages of 17 and 75 who weighs at least 110 pounds can participate.

A minimum of 600 pints of blood is needed every day for patients in area hospitals, according to Heartland. The Council of PTA’s host blood drives each year to help meet these needs.

To make an appointment, visit www.heartlandbc.org and click on Schedule an Appointment.

For more information about this blood drive or to sign up to be a donor, please contact Heather Collier, Health and Safety Chairperson of the PTA Council, at (708) 951-4118.

A majority of District 54 students met or exceeded state standards based on the state assessments in reading and math given in March 2011: 94.6 percent in math and 90.8 percent in reading.

In 2011, 17 schools met the board-adopted goal of at least 90 percent of students at the school meeting or exceeding standards in reading and math. In addition, 24 schools scored 90 percent or higher on the ISAT math test only.

Students in third through eighth grades in Illinois take one of two state assessments:  the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) or the Illinois Alternate Assessment (IAA). The state uses these assessments to determine which schools in Illinois are making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

The goal of the law is that all children in theUnited Stateswill meet or exceed state standards by the 2013-14 school year. This year at least 85 percent of students in each subgroup must meet or exceed standards. Subgroups include racial background, low income, limited English proficient and students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs).

In 2011, 20 District 54 schools made AYP, including Keller Junior High School which did not make AYP in 2010.

However, Mead, Eisenhower, MacArthur, Einstein, Muir, Lakeview and Addams did not make AYP because one or more of their subgroups did not make AYP. Because this is the third year that Lakeview has not made AYP, the district was required to offer Lakeview parents the choice to attend another district school. Twenty students transferred to Hoover.

District 54 will continue to face challenges as the AYP percent increases significantly each year. For 2012, 92.5 percent of students must meet or exceed state standards in reading and math.

In District 54 we also assess student growth through Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) three times a year. In 2011, 67.1 percent of students in grades 2 to 8 met their growth targets in reading and 67.21 percent of students in grades 2 to 8 met their growth targets in math. We are still working toward improving our current reality.

To meet these challenges, several action plans are underway, including:

• Continue to implement the kindergarten through second grade Literacy Plan and Assessment Package;
• Continue to implement the new District 54 Writing Framework;
• Continue to implement the English Language Learning Instructional Framework;
• Continue to implement Professional Learning Communities; and
• Pilot benchmark assessments aligned to the Common Core Standards.

For the complete report presented by Assistant Superintendent Karen Hindman at the Oct. 6, 2011, District 54 School Board meeting, visit http://www.boarddocs.com/il/sd54/Board.nsf/Public.

The Schaumburg Township Elementary School Foundation has developed an exciting new partnership with Groupon, Amazon and other companies that will allow you to help provide extracurricular activities to students in need without spending an additional dime.

The additional dollars that are generated through this partnership will also enable the Foundation to expand its commitment to providing more innovative learning opportunities for students in District 54.

The Foundation has been chosen to be among the first to participate in an exciting new program that will bring additional resources to our schools and students – the Create Excitement for Public Schools Initiative. Through this initiative the Foundation is partnering with Amazon, Groupon, Mabel’s Labels and Identity Direct.

By doing nothing more than redirecting your online buying to benefit the Schaumburg Township Elementary School Foundation, you can help raise additional funds that are used to benefit students in all 27 of our schools.

The Foundation is made up of a voluntary Board of Directors from our community and serves as a vehicle for obtaining resources to support educational initiatives not funded by regular school district revenue sources. Each year the Foundation funds scholarships for students to further their academic, cultural and extracurricular interests after school hours. These grants have provided numerous opportunities to students who would not have been able to participate due to limited family resources. This past summer the grant recipients were able to attend scouting, sports and diabetes camps as well as classes in technology, cooking, dance, music and science.

In addition, staff members are able to apply for project grants, which provide additional resources to enhance and enrich the learning experiences that our students receive. Over the past several years, these grants have supported the purchase of additional books and other reading materials, mathematics and science materials, a variety of musical instruments, materials for parent classes and other resources. This would not have been possible without the additional support from the Foundation.

The Foundation has also been instrumental in supporting the development and implementation of school-wide innovative projects. The additional resources raised by the Foundation provided a portion
of the seed money to start the new Hoover Math and Science Academy and most recently, photography equipment for junior high art elective classes.

Please consider joining us in this quick and easy way to bring additional funding to our schools. The Foundation will receive a portion of the proceeds based on the amount of purchases by our  supporters. We can increase this amount tremendously if you share this information with everyone you know and encourage them to register. They will automatically receive the Groupon for their area of the country and our Foundation will receive a percentage of their sales. Once you register you will receive a daily email with the Groupon deal of the day and the links to Amazon, Mabel’s Labels
and Identity Direct.

Signing up is easy. Visit http://www.ce4psdeals.com and enter your name, email and zip code. Also, don’t forget to select The D54 Foundation in Schaumburg as your Foundation of choice. Once you register, you will receive a confirmation message. From that day forward you will receive daily emails with links to the four companies listed above.

If you already have a Groupon account, please note that it is important that you buy through this link rather than the one that you are currently receiving directly from Groupon. The deals are the same, but the Foundation only benefits if you click through the Foundation email.

Thank you for your support of our Foundation.