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ALTON - As students and staff at Alton Community Unit School District #11 settle into the school year, Superintendent Elaine Kane breaks down the District Improvement Plan.
Kane welcomed the community back to school and expressed her excitement to serve in the superintendent role.
“I wouldn’t want to do it anywhere else,” she said. “The 31 years that I’ve been in Alton have been so meaningful to me because of the relationships. And this is my home. I’m an Alton High graduate. Our four kids graduated from Alton. So it’s personal. The work here for me is personal. This is my community.”
Kane explained that the district has spent the last 18 months working on the District Improvement Plan. Administrators and the Board of Education have categorized everyone in the district into one of two groups: the people who teach and the people who create the conditions for teaching and learning.
By dividing responsibilities into these two categories, Kane said, it allows staff members to focus on their priorities. Anyone who interacts with students is considered a person who teaches because they are influencing students. The remainder of the district, including administrators and the Board of Education, create the conditions for this teaching and learning.
“Every time we make a decision or allocate resources, we ask ourselves, is that going to create excellent conditions for teaching and learning? Because that’s what we believe the students and the staff in Alton deserve,” Kane said. “They deserve outstanding conditions, so that’s our gut check. That’s how we do business.”
The District Improvement Plan has also identified three key areas that ACUSD11 plans to focus on going forward. These priorities include creating a culture of belonging, grade-appropriate instruction and assignments, and high-quality professional learning communities.
Kane explained that the culture of belonging is important because people tend to do better when they feel like they belong. At the most recent Board of Education meeting, ACUSD11 principals discussed how they will create a culture of belonging in their schools going forward.
The grade-appropriate instruction and assignments priority addresses the curriculum that students are exposed to. Kane noted that all students in the U.S. are operating by the same standards, so ACUSD11 wants to ensure their students are prepared.
“Our second goal is grade-appropriate instruction and assignments. So when we say that, we’re saying every student deserves access to the core curriculum,” she explained. “We know the standards are the same all across the United States, so students in Alton are going to be just as prepared as students in any other community across the United States. We’re constantly checking ourselves, are we teaching to that high expectation?”
The professional learning communities refer to the teams within schools. Kane believes that teamwork and collaboration benefit the district and the students, and this is a focus within the schools going forward.
“Our administrative team is a professional team, our school board is a professional team, each grade level team of teachers is a professional team,” Kane said. “Functioning as teams, that’s one of our priorities because we know that’s how we do our best work.”
Each individual school has developed a school improvement plan that addresses the three priorities articulated in the District Improvement Plan. The District Improvement Plan was unanimously approved by the ACUSD11 Board of Education during their most recent meeting.
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