Admittedly, on paper, it doesn’t seem fair.
The 2024-25 Illinois Report Card issued by Illinois State Board of Education on Oct. 30 showed that Riverside-Brookfield High School District 208 scored 92.04. That’s a slight increase from last year, at 91.98.
Here’s the thing. The Illinois Report Card awards schools that rank in the top 10% of the state as Exemplary. District 208 has been Exemplary the last two years.
This year, its 92.04 score rated it Commendable … which are schools that rank in the next 67%. According to Supt. Kevin Skinkis, the cutoff for Exemplary status was 92.95.
In other words, Riverside-Brookfield just missed the top 10% threshold.
“I think it’s important that the school demonstrated continued growth,” Skinkis said. “While we’re frustrated we just missed the Exemplary cutoff, we’re still pleased with our Commendable rating and we know we are a very strong high school.”
Deanna Zalas, school board president, agreed.
“I was also disappointed (but) the district comes from a place of continuous improvement,” she said. “We’re on the top end of Commendable. The overall report card gives you a snapshot of measurement of all areas of the district, so it gives you meaningful feedback.”
Riverside-Brookfield enrolled 1,638 students in 2024-25, 51.4% male and 49.3% female. About 45.2% were white, while 43.7% were Hispanic and 4.6% were Black.
Graduation rate makes up 50% of a school’s score, and at this, Riverside-Brookfield achieved 95.1%, well ahead of the state mark of 89% and a slight increase over the prior year.
Despite the drop to Commendable status, Skinkis’s big-picture look at the data showed many positive signs.
“I’m pleased with the continued improvements with freshmen on track,” he offered as one example. “I think that’s a great benchmark to continue to work on. Being in education for 25 years, all in high school, making sure freshmen are on track is a big thing.”
Freshmen on track went up slightly, to 97.2% from 96.8% in 2023-24. Skinkis said that the school’s student services department works directly with freshmen in that area and looks at three variables: Attendance, behavior and academics. Interventions are in place for those students who may be struggling.
Chronic absenteeism is the percentage of students who miss 10% or more of school days per year either with or without a valid excuse. For RB, the metric was 20%, almost equal to 19.9% a year ago. Skinkis said that students are encouraged to stay home if they exhibit cold and flu symptoms, but other days that count against the district are the five mental health days the state has implemented, along with days for college visits.
Skinkis admitted that “it comes off the page when you read it in the report.”
“We’re putting in the interventions, talking to parents right away about extended absences,” he said. “It would be helpful if the state only counted when students are sick and not count mental health days or college days.”
Zalas said, “I like calling it a stubborn metric.
“Pre-pandemic, you had a different perspective on absenteeism,” she said. “I think we have an increased awareness of how your health impacts people. There is an increased focus on your health as it relates to the community.”
The ACT Suite of assessments is the designated High School Assessment for Illinois, replacing the SAT, and here, Riverside-Brookfield scored 71.8% of students proficient in English-Language Arts. In math, 60% of students were considered proficient.
Another key statistic was the percentage of students enrolling in college within 12 months of graduating. From the 2022-23 school year, 82.3% did so, compared with 77.9% in 2021-22, after the pandemic.
“We’ve always had a big push at RB to pursue four- or two-year college enrollment,” Skinkis said. “We do continue to monitor a graduating class’s enrollment through a clearinghouse program. There is a way to go back and colleges are required to report that information, so we know how many kids stay enrolled.”
With another year of data, what does that suggest as far as next steps?
“I think we still need to work on our ACT performance,” he said. “We’re making a good push to review common assessments and review student performance and make sure (students) not only do well on standardized tests like the ACT, but internally, so everybody has the skills to be college ready.”
