Rockford Public Schools Superintendent Ehren Jarrett answers questions Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, about Rockford Public Schools performance on state standardized tests after Illinois State Report Card data was released. (Photo by Kevin Haas/Rock River Current)By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — The graduation rate for Rockford Public Schools students has risen five percentage points in the past year and is seven percentage points higher than it stood before the pandemic, new state data shows.
The district’s graduation rate stood at 73.5% at the end of last school year, according to state report card data released Wednesday by the Illinois State Board of Education. That still lags the state average of 87.7%, but it is up from 68.9% in 2023.
“We want to see every part of our community see success and every family in our community and every child experience success, and I think the graduation rate shows some really powerful steps,” Superintendent Ehren Jarrett said.
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Jarrett took questions from reporters Wednesday morning at the district’s administrative offices after the state data was released.
He’s been challenged by the board to lead the district to hitting key benchmarks on student achievement as a condition of his continued employment beyond the end of his contract on June 30, 2026. That includes a 75% graduation rate and 20% rate of students who meet or exceed state proficiency standards for English language arts, also called Illinois Assessment of Readiness literacy rates.
The scores students get at the end of this school year, which will be released in October 2025, is what school board members will use to determine if the Jarrett has led the district to hit those marks.
“I’m really proud of the fact that we are really marching toward success in all of those key areas: We are seeing middle school on track rate, freshman on track rate and graduation rate all very rapidly approach what our end target is for the short term,” Jarrett said. “That leads me to believe that in the long term we can accomplish great things.”
Graduation rates by year
- 2024: 73.5%
- 2023: 68.9%
- 2022: 65.6%
- 2021: 64.4%
- 2020: 66.9%
- 2019: 66.4%
Jarrett gave credit to the district’s college and career readiness programs and its academy model, which prepares students for certain career pathways, for helping improve the rates. He also said programs like Rockford Promise, which provide full tuition scholarships to Northern Illinois University for students who earn a 3.0 grade point average, for motivating students.
“I think it really helps to get folks excited about graduating from high school if they can see a career beyond high school, whether it’s college to career or whether it’s directly to career,” he said. “No matter what they do, we want to create the tools for them to do that, and we’re doing a better and better job of that by evidence of our graduation rate and the improvement in our model academies.”
Chronic absenteeism | 46%
Rockford Public Schools, like many districts across the state and the country, has struggled with students missing class since the onset of the pandemic in 2020. But the rate remains higher in Rockford than the state average.
The state measures chronic absenteeism through the percentage of students who miss 10% or more school days either with a valid excuse or without reason. Last year, the district’s rate was 46% compared to 26% statewide.
Rockford’s rate is down from 47.5% in the 2023-24 school year and its peak of 60.8% in 2021-22. It was 35.4% before the pandemic in 2019.
Jarrett said the district has an attendance specialist in each school to partner with families to help ensure their child will make it to school. He said schools also need buy-in from parents and guardians to make it clear that showing up to class is non-negotiable.
“We want to meet with every family, every child who is struggling with chronic absenteeism and find out what barriers we need to remove to help support them,” Jarrett said. “But also be firm about it. At some point we also need some partnership here, and I want to be clear that this is not a one-way street. The district can’t fix this problem by itself. We need parental and family partnerships, we also need community partnerships. It is only through all of those investments together that we can truly address a core, root issue like chronic absenteeism being at 46%.”
Literacy standards | 23%
Rockford Public Schools saw 23% of its third through eighth graders meeting or exceeding state proficiency standards for English language arts, also called Illinois Assessment of Readiness literacy rates. That beats the goal the school board laid out for Jarrett by three percentage points, but it trails the state average of 41.2%.
In 2023, about 18% of students met the literacy standards, with 15.3% hitting the mark and 2.6% exceeding the benchmark. At the end of the last school year in 2024, 19.8% of students were meeting the standard and 3.2% were surpassing those goals.
“We’ve had a little revolution about literacy in this place,” Jarrett said. “And people throughout our school district really care at all levels about making sure we have the right approach to literacy and that our approach really meets the needs of all learners.”
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Teacher retention | 87%
The new Illinois State Report Card shows 87.2% of teachers return to work at the same school over a three-year average. That compares to 89.6% statewide.
The rate is similar to a year earlier, when teacher retention stood at 87.9% in Rockford, and it remains higher than pre-pandemic averages of 80.4% in 2019 and 82.6% in 2018.
Jarrett said teacher retention starts with ensuring that educators feel supported and valued in their learning environment.
“They don’t want to be in a place where they don’t feel that their professional expertise is being valued,” he said. “They don’t want to see themselves as placeholders in a student’s life. They really want to make a difference.”
Rockford Public Schools Superintendent Ehren Jarrett fields questions from reporters Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, at the district’s administration offices after new Illinois State Report Card data was released. (Photo by Kevin Haas/Rock River Current)The district also has to offer regionally competitive salaries, opportunities for growth through continued education and training and it has to create a climate for success.
“When folks are feeling like what I do matters that is an intrinsic kind of compensation that you can’t put a price tag on,” Jarrett said.
‘Generational work’
Jarrett said he was encouraged by the improving scores for the district, highlighting schools such as Haskell Elementary School, 515 Maple St., which achieved exemplary school status this year. That means it performed in the top 10% of all schools with no underperforming student groups.
He said the strides made on state standardized scores show some of the district’s efforts are working, but there is a lot of work to do to further improve student achievement and realize the vision he and school board members have for Rockford.
“This is not something you can fix overnight. This is generational work,” he said. “I really want us to continue to roll up our sleeves to stay the course because I think we’re starting to get somewhere with student achievement.”
This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas