Superintendent Update April 1, 2021

To view past superintendent updates, please click here. To view weekly updates online, please visit our District Updates archive on our website.

We are excited to see many new faces in our schools and classrooms in the past two weeks. As more adults and family members are able to receive their first vaccine dose or are fully vaccinated, we understand you may now have an interest in in-person learning. If your family situation has changed and you would like your child(ren) to return for in-person learning, please reach out to your school or building administrator for more information. As I have shared in recent updates, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) have released Revised Public Health Guidance for Schools. This guidance recommends social distancing in schools be defined as 3 to 6 feet between students in some situations instead of the previous 6 feet. We have maintained all of our current social distancing practices and precautions for in-person learning. Another necessary mitigation effort that we are still reinforcing, which did not change in the guidance, is the need for contact tracing. We will continue to follow our guidelines and protocols for contact tracing, including notifying close contacts and quarantining anyone who may have been exposed to the virus. We ask our in-person families to continue to be diligent in completing your daily COVID-19 Symptom Screening checklist before sending your child(ren) for in-person learning. Please do not send your child to school if they feel sick, whether you believe it to be COVID or not. I do want to remind all students, staff, families, and visitors that mask-wearing continues to be mandated in our schools, no matter your vaccination status.

I want to encourage families that want to learn more about summer in-person learning opportunities or those who want to hear more about what to expect when we return to school in August to tune in to the Board Meeting on Tuesday, April 6 at 7:30 p.m. We are excited to be able to offer a wide array of comprehensive summer programming for our students. Programs will range from various enrichment activities, credit recovery, sports camps, skill enhancement, all while incorporating academics and social-emotional learning in a new and unique way. On Tuesday, we will share a brief District overview of the programs being offered. However, I encourage you to stay connected with your schools via your announcements, newsletters, and special messages regarding more information on how and when to register and enroll for these summer offerings.

Finally, I would like to share exciting news with the Urbana community regarding federal grant funds that our District will receive. We all know and understand that COVID-19 has significantly impacted the academic and social-emotional growth of our students. We also know this impact has exacerbated racial and socioeconomic inequities for large groups of our students of color and students from special populations with higher needs. To address the pandemic’s negative impacts, federal dollars have been allocated directly to schools to help renew learning for students and recoup some of the lost learning opportunities from the past year. The extended learning programs being offered this summer are but one example of how we plan to prioritize our funding. In the weeks to come, we will be prioritizing our most critical areas of need and sharing early ideas from our planning teams and district leadership. Early ideas and requirements for spending our federal dollars include, but are not limited to:

• Implementation of evidence-based interventions, such as summer enrichment, summer learning, extended day, and after school programs that respond to students’ academic, social, and emotional needs and address the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on underrepresented student groups

• Plans to pilot and adopt evidence-based, culturally responsive, digital curriculum

• Enhanced literacy and math curriculum and professional development

• Update our social-emotional, mental wellness, and trauma-informed tools and strategies

• Refine and update benchmark and diagnostic assessments to provide reliable measures for understanding the impact on student learning and to target students’ needs

• Increased program flexibility at the secondary level

• Technology upgrades and refresh plans

• Enhance air quality and HVAC systems in all schools

• Increase our PPE efforts to manage the full day, 5-days a week instruction model for the 21-22 school year

• Enhance our cleaning and sanitizing efforts for the full day, 5-days a week instruction model for the 21-22 school year

We are looking forward to planning the most impactful ways to support safe, innovative, and engaging teaching and learning for students, staff, and families. Enjoy your long weekend!

Be safe and stay well,

Dr. Ivory-Tatum,

Superintendent

This year teachers, parents, guardians, and fourth-graders through twelfth graders are encouraged to participate in the Illinois 5Essentials Survey to share their thoughts on the important elements of school effectiveness and help guide school improvement. Click here to complete the 5Essentials Survey administered by UChicago Impact at the University of Chicago on behalf of the Illinois State Board of Education. Your identity and survey responses will be kept entirely confidential and will never be connected to you or your child. The schools have also been sharing the survey link, so you may have already completed this survey. If parents or guardians have more than one child at a school, you can complete one survey for each child and each school. If you would still like an opportunity to share your thoughts to help guide school improvement, you should complete the survey as soon as possible. The survey window will close on Friday, April 2, 2021 (tomorrow).

The State Board of Education has directed us to move forward with spring assessments, despite many districts’ efforts to eliminate these assessments to allow our students more instructional time. ACCESS plans for ELLs are being finalized. Schools will be sharing updates and ACCESS schedules. Students attending in-person in grades 3-8 will take the IAR assessments in April. Elementary students attending in-person in grades 3-5 will take the IAR assessments beginning April 19th, and Urbana Middle School will begin April 13th. All in-person students in grades 5 and 8 will take the ISA assessment after April 19th. UHS juniors will take the ISA the first week of May. These assessments must be completed in-person so schools will check in with remote only families to coordinate participation.

Online registration will open following the end of the school year in July. If you have questions or concerns, it is essential that you communicate with your school now prior to the online registration window opening. We are requesting that you make sure your contact information in Family Access is correct before the end of the school year. We will be sharing more information and messaging as the end of the school year approaches.

Dr. Gene Amberg began his career in public education in 1972 as an elementary school teacher in St. Louis, Missouri. He served as superintendent of Urbana School District #116 from 1992 until his retirement in 2007. In 2003, the Champaign Urbana Schools Foundation (CUSF) Gene Amberg Excellence in Teaching Endowed Chair was established to honor Dr. Amberg’s leadership and dedication to children and educators throughout his career. Every three years, an Urbana School District #116 teacher is chosen to receive the Gene Amberg Excellence in Teaching Endowed Chair. This recognition comes with a monetary award from the Endowment held by the CUSF.

Nominations may be submitted by: 1) self 2) peer 3) student 4) former student 5) parent 6) supervisor 7) administrator.

There are many deserving USD teachers who could be nominated. The nominations require a letter of support from an administrator, and I hope you will have time between now and the end of April to make a nomination. The deadline is Friday, April 30, 2021, 4:00 pm. Please see the attached information linked here for more details.

Email: contactus@usd116.org
Website: usd116.org
Location: 205 North Race Street, Urbana, IL, USA
Phone: 2173843600
Facebook: facebook.com/usd116
Twitter: @urbana116