Mokena District 159 Registers High Marks On State Report Card
MOKENA, IL — Students across Mokena District 159 improved academically in both math and English Language Arts over the past year and posted their highest scores ever in both subjects, according to a new report card that was released by the Illinois State Board of Education on Monday morning.
Mokena Elementary School, Mokena Intermediate School, and Mokena Junior High all showed increases in the percentage of students who either met or exceeded standards in Math and English Language Arts, according to the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR) scores that were released by the state. And while many districts across Illinois continue to struggle to break free of the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, district officials are celebrating the fact that local students are moving ahead.
In English Language Arts, 40.8 percent of students at Mokena Elementary either met or exceeded standards, the report card shows. In comparison, 43.3 percent of students at Mokena Intermediate School and 65.7 percent of students at Mokena Junior High reached the same level, according to the report. From 2022, the percentage of District 159 students who either met or exceeded academic standards set by the state rose by 13 percent over the past year, district officials said.
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In addition, the number of students across the district that either met or exceeded state standards doubled since testing was done in 2022, the district said in a report issued to District 159 families on Monday.
In the report, District 159 Superintendent Mark Cohen said that students posted their highest scores in IAR despite the residual effects of the pandemic. Cohen also pointed out that the strides made in English Language Arts students between 2022 and this year’s testing registered in the top 1 percent of the state and was the best among schools in Will County.
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The report also showed that District 159 students improved in math over the past year. As in the case of English Language Arts, the percentage of students at the district’s three school buildings who are tested in grades 3-8 who either met or exceeded state standards in math grew by 4.2 percent, the district said.
According to the state report card, 55.2 percent of students at Mokena Elementary met or exceeded state standards in math. Meanwhile, 53.9 percent of students at Mokena Intermediate and 47.4 percent of students at Mokena Junior High fell into that category, the report card indicates.
Student performance in math at Mokena Junior High ranked No. 2 among Will County schools, Cohen said, and among the top 3.2 percent of schools across Illinois.
Cohen said that English Language Arts and, specifically, writing at the Junior High level and phonics at the lower levels, have been a focus for the district since 2021. Students at the junior high have been tasked with more argumentative writing across a number of different classes while the phonics curriculum at the elementary and intermediate levels was revamped coming out of the pandemic before new reading materials were rolled out at both schools this year, the superintendent said.
Cohen said that a new, more rigorous English Language Arts education program was introduced at the elementary and intermediate school levels this year with the intention of improving student performance even more.
District students also posted their highest scores ever in math on the IAR assessment, the district said. Cohen said that while other statewide districts lagged on the assessment since the pandemic, Mokena had its best year ever.
In addition, the report stated that in science, which is tested among fifth, eighth, and 11th graders, District 159 students also performed well. The report card showed that 72.7 percent of Mokena Intermediate School students either met or exceeded standards while 65.7 percent of students at the junior high level fell into that category.
The steady improvement coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic in math and science is proof, Cohen told Patch, that the district is following the right course coming out of such a challenging time for educators and students alike.
“We’re approaching our work just one step at a time, biting things off one step at a time,” Cohen said. “It’s been a consistent effort into the areas where we have the most opportunity to improve.
Cohen wrote in a letter to district parents on Monday morning that while student scores improved in English Language Arts and math, the district is continuing to make even more improvements in both subject areas, Cohen said. The district has introduced a more stringent reading curriculum and introduced a new math curriculum in 2019, which has been updated recently and has been implemented in Grades 5-8 in the district, Cohen said.
“(The academic improvement) validates the work,” Cohen told Patch. “No matter if you want to look at the county or the state, we’re in the top 14 percent. That’s something to be proud of, but it’s done through intention, and it’s done by design.”
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