Good morning, everyone. District 90 in River Forest has released an alert that one of its middle school students reported being followed after school on three separate occasions this week. You can access the alert by clicking here. We wanted to make you aware of this situation, and will provide you with updates as they become available.
Sincerely,
Chris Jasculca
Director of Policy, Planning and Communication
District 97
Dear District 97 Community,
The severe weather that descended upon the area during the past few weeks tested the resolve of our entire community. Please permit me to express my appreciation for the patience and understanding you exhibited during this challenging time, as well as for the thoughtful feedback several of you provided regarding the school closings throughout the area. While opinions about the decision to cancel classes varied, every email and phone call we received reflected a genuine concern for the health and safety of our students and staff.
As you know, we have experienced several extraordinary weather events during the past three years, including a blizzard in 2011, flooding in 2013 and the near record cold in January. In any situation involving inclement weather, there is a process I follow as the superintendent of schools when deciding whether we will be in session. This process includes:
I also carefully consider a variety of factors that correspond with a weather emergency. These factors include, but are not limited to, the total amount of precipitation, the temperature, the timing of a storm, the condition of the streets and sidewalks, and the potential impact taking days off will have on our working families. In the end, regardless of how complex a situation may be, our primary goal when making any school-related decision has been and always will be to do what is best for the nearly 6,000 pupils we serve.
As we look ahead to the end of the school year, we are required by law to be in session a minimum of 176 days. We are also required by law to make up any of the five emergency days we are mandated by the state to factor into our school calendar. With this in mind, we have spent the past few days researching and discussing the options that are available for making up the two emergency days we used last week. These options included reducing the length of spring break, rescheduling our February 14 Institute Day, holding school during one or more of the remaining holidays or extending the end of the school year as we have done in the past.
After reviewing all of these options and consulting with various entities on this issue, including the Illinois State Board of Education, we have decided to move the end of the school year to Tuesday, June 10. We realize that this decision may impact people’s summer plans, and apologize for any inconvenience it might cause. However, when we evaluated the available solutions, we determined that this one presented the fewest number of programmatic, financial and/or scheduling challenges for everyone involved.
As for eighth grade graduation, we have decided not to move the date or alter any of the planned activities. The ceremonies for Brooks and Julian will be held as scheduled on Tuesday, June 3 at Oak Park and River Forest High School. While we realize this decision may ultimately impact our General State Aid as it relates to student attendance, we believe any attempt to switch both the date and location at this juncture would be unfair to the hundreds of families who made their plans for this special occasion months ago.
We have also decided to change the dates for the completion of the last two trimesters and the corresponding distribution of report cards. By doing so, we can ensure that each trimester has a similar number of instructional days. The last day of the second trimester will now be Friday [ed. note: this is a Wednesday], March 5, with report cards being sent home on March 21. The last day of the third trimester will be Tuesday, June 10, with report cards being sent home the same day.
Lastly, there is a chance we may encounter additional weather-related disruptions as the school year progresses. If we do need to take additional days off due to an unforeseen circumstance, the latest we anticipate our school year will end is Wednesday, June 11. This is because we only have one emergency day remaining. After that, we are allowed by the state to categorize other closures due to “conditions beyond the control of the district that poses a hazardous threat to the health and safety of the students” as “Act of God Days.”
Thank you again for your time and attention on this matter, as well as your commitment to education and support of our schools.
Sincerely,
Al Roberts
Superintendent
Update 2/5/14
Good morning, everyone. Hope you are all doing well. I am writing to clarify and correct a couple of the items from yesterday’s message regarding the end of the 2013-2014 school year. First, the March 5 date for the end of the second trimester is actually a Wednesday, not a Friday. Second, eighth grade students will not be required to attend school following the graduation ceremony on Tuesday, June 3.
Sorry for any confusion that the information we provided yesterday might have caused.
Sincerely,
Chris Jasculca
Director of Policy, Planning and Communication
On Wednesday, January 29, Sara Ray Stoelinga, Rachel Levenstein and Molly Quish from the University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute will be giving a presentation about the 5Essentials Survey at Mann Elementary School from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. You can access additional information about the presentation, or RSVP for the event, by visitinghttp://www.op97.org/news/Presentation-on-Exploring-the-5Essentials-Survey-January-29-25.cfm?grp_id=6827.
The National Weather Service is forecasting high temperatures and humidity for the city of Chicago and surrounding suburbs today. While we intend to proceed with the school day as scheduled, we will be taking the necessary precautions to protect the health and safety of our students and staff. These precautions will include, but not be limited to:
In addition, we will closely monitor the conditions in our buildings throughout the day and adjust our plans as needed to preserve the physical well-being of our children. Any significant changes will be shared with the community via automated phone message, e-mail, the district’s family of Web sites and the local media. We encourage you to monitor one or more of these communication resources for updates about the weather and its impact on the school schedule and district operations.
We also want to thank those of you who have shared your thoughts/feedback with us about the installation of air conditioning in our school buildings. We certainly understand and appreciate your concerns about the potential impact hot temperatures can have on a student’s health and ability to learn.
We want to let you know that we are continuing to look into the possibility of installing air conditioning in our classrooms. In fact, the Board of Education charged its citizen-led Facilities Advisory Committee (FAC) with the task of working with the district administration on this important issue. This work has included looking at the options that are available for adding air conditioning to our buildings, as well as determining cost implications and studying the possible effect this decision will have on our efforts to improve/enhance accessibility in our schools. If you are interested, you can access a summary of one of the more recent discussions FAC had regarding air conditioning by reviewing the information on pages one and two of the minutes from its meeting on April 10, 2013. You can access those minutes by visiting http://www.op97.org/board-of-education/documents/FACminutes041013.pdf.
As has traditionally been the case, FAC did not meet during the summer. It will resume its work in September, and plans on presenting information about air conditioning (options, cost implications, effect on accessibility, etc.) to the board in October. We will provide the community with additional information regarding this presentation (date, time and location) as soon as it is available.
Thank you again for sharing your comments and concerns, and for your continued support of our schools and the students we serve.
Below is information about District 97 we thought our families might find helpful as we start the 2013-2014 school year.
Calendars
You can access the 2013-2014 calendars for the schools and the district by clicking here. You also have the ability to export the school and/or district calendars to your personal calendars. To export any of our online calendars, please visit here and click on the export button next to the calendar you want to share with your own.
Community Listerv
The district has an e-mail listserv we will use to disseminate important information during the school year. If you are interested in signing up for this listserv, please click here. You can also automatically unsubscribe from the listserv at any time by clicking here.
Community Resources
You can access links to a variety of community resources, including the Village of Oak Park, Oak Park River Forest High School, the Oak Park Public Library and the Park District of Oak Park byclicking here.
District 97 Board of Education
The District 97 Board of Education meetings are open to the public, and are generally held on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m. in the board room of the administration building, which is located at 970 Madison Street. The board meeting schedule is set at the beginning of each year, and can be accessed by clicking here or obtained from the board secretary by calling (708) 524-3009. The agenda and packet of materials for each board meeting can be accessed by clicking here, approved board meeting minutes can be accessed by clicking here, and the email addresses for all seven board members can be accessed by clicking here.
Digital Backpack
District 97’s digital backpack is used to keep parents/guardians informed about what is happening in the schools and community, while also reducing the amount of paper we use. The Web-based backpack features links and PDFs containing information that had previously been distributed in a hard copy format. A link to each school’s backpack is featured in the main navigation of the school website, as well as on the district’s site.
If you do not have the means to receive weekly packet information electronically, please contact the front office staff of your child’s school and arrangements will be made to provide you with this information in a hard copy format.
Fee Payment
You can make fee and food service payments via the district’s Web store, which can be accessed by clicking here. Those individuals who would prefer to make payments using another method (e.g., pay in person) should contact the front office of their child’s school to learn more about the options that are available.
Food Service Menus
You can access the food service menus for your child’s school, including the breakfast and lunch menus for August, by clicking here.
Handbooks
Please click here to access the district’s Effective Student Behavior Handbook and Parent Handbook for the 2013-2014 school year.
Mobile Application
We created a mobile application that smartphone owners can download and use to access important school and district-related information at any time (news, calendar, digital backpack, Web store, etc.).Click here for additional information or to download the app. Please note that this app will not work on a tablet device (e.g., iPad).
Policies
You can access the district’s policies by clicking here.
“Promises Made-Promises Kept” Web site
On April 5, 2011, the citizens of Oak Park demonstrated their support for our schools by voting to pass the first operating rate referendum the district had sought in more than 20 years. We have developed a special website that will enable the general public to monitor the progress we have made in areas such as finance, student achievement, capital projects, technology and foreign language since the election. Each section of the site features two categories of information – promises made during the referendum and promises kept since it was passed. You can access the site by clicking here.
RSS Feeds
The district and school websites feature RSS feeds that will enable users to subscribe to the digital backpack, news and calendars. RSS, otherwise known as Rich Site Summary, allows people to stay informed/updated by retrieving the latest content from the sites they subscribe to. You can subscribe to any of these feeds by visiting those specific sections on the school or district sites and selecting which option you would prefer to use to receive updates.
Teacher Web pages
All of the teachers in the district have a Web page that they use to share information with parents/guardians and keep them updated about what is happening in our classrooms and schools. You can access these pages via the school websites by clicking on the directory link in the main navigation and then clicking on either the view website link for any of the teachers listed on the page or the teacher pages link in the navigation on the left. On the main district site, you can access these pages by clicking here.
Transportation
You access information about bus transportation and the Village of Oak Park’s Safe Walking Routes for each school by clicking here.
Twitter
We are using Twitter to keep the community updated about what is happening in our schools and the district as a whole. You can access the district’s Twitter account by clicking here.
Irving School PTO 