2024 Illinois Report Card - How to Tell Your Story - Annual Summative Designation

Oct 10, 2026

Uploaded by Noah

2024 Illinois Report Card guide outlines how schools and districts can communicate their federally required Annual Summative Designation in 2024. It helps identify key audiences, develop the top three messages, and align communications with stakeholders’ questions about data, strengths, growth, learning recovery, and investments. The guide provides suggested messaging scenarios for different designation transitions and explains practical channels and timing, including coordination with educator preview and media embargo dates.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages3

Reading Time8 min

AccessFree to download

How to Tell Your Story

Who needs to know?

What is the most important thing for people to know or understand?

Potential scenarios for messaging

How can we share information?

When should we communicate?

2024 ILLINOIS REPORT CARD TELL YOUR STORY OF LEARNING RENEWAL How to Tell Your Story The 2024 Illinois Report Card provides an opportunity for each school and district to tell its story – but what does that mean? Each school will receive a new Annual Summative Designation in 2024, as federally required. This guide showshow you can foster deeper conversations about what your designation means and engage your stakeholders in your school improvement efforts. 1. Who needs to know? Identify your target audiences – the primary groups of people who influence the success of your school improvement efforts, such as: • Teachers, principals, and school staff-primary change agents for student success and key messengers to parents and families • School board members-oversee personnel, budgets, and policies • Media-provide information to the broader community • Parents and families-partners in their children's education and in school improvement • Students-empowered to own their learning • Community partners and businessessupport school initiatives 2. What is the most important thing for people to know or understand? Consider these questions and then choose your top three key messages. • What questions will our target audiences ask about our data and designation? What do they care about? • Do they know what the designation means? Check out these fact sheets: • Annual Summative Designations • Multiple Indicators of Student Success • What does our data say about our strengths, areas for growth, and progress in learning recovery? Consider comparing 2024 data to both 2023 and 2019 (pre-pandemic) . • What have we invested in improving over the past year? What instructional changes have we implemented? How has this impacted our Student Growth Percentile? • What do we do now? [isbe](isbe.net/ilreportcard)[.net/ilreportcard](isbe.net/ilreportcard) September 2024 Consider these scenarios to help communicate your Annual Summative Designation. | Potential Scenario | Suggested Messaging | | --- | --- | | Targeted to Comprehensive | Our school improvement efforts did not produce the results we were hoping for in the prescribed timeline, but we have so much to be proud of. The new designation gives us more funding and learning opportunities and expandsour ability to take a more holistic approach. | | Comprehensive to Intensive | Our school improvement efforts did not produce the results we were hoping for in the prescribed timeline, but we have so much to be proud of. The new designation does not instigate any radical changes. It allows us to build on our successes and build momentum toward what’s working with some additional supports from the state. Your partnership, feedback, and ideas are more important than ever. | | Exiting School
Improvement Status | Our designation this year is cause for celebration. We are proud to have sustained learning gains and to exit School Improvement Status. Your partnership was invaluable every step of the way. | | Exemplary to Commendable | The change in our designation is not cause for concern. We have so much to proud of. A new visual on the Illinois Report Card helps to explain the data behind the summative designation and shows just how close we were to the Exemplary category. | | Commendable or Exemplary with Low Proficiency Rates | The designation recognizes more than just proficiency rates. We exceled in [low chronic absenteeism/supporting student growth /high graduation rates/other indicator(s)] . A new visual on the Illinois Report Card helps to explain the data behind the summative designation. | | Commendable or Exemplary but still in School Improvement Status | We are proud of our designation this year and have much to celebrate. We will continue in School Improvement Status for a full four-year cycle. With your partnership, we can sustain these gains. | [isbe](isbe.net/ilreportcard)[.net/ilreportcard](isbe.net/ilreportcard) 3. How can we share informati

FAQs

Who are the primary audiences for communicating the Annual Summative Designation?

The guide identifies teachers and school staff, principals, school board members, media, parents and families, students, and community partners/businesses as key audiences.

What should schools choose to communicate as their most important information?

Schools should consider likely audience questions, whether people understand what the designation means, what the data shows about strengths and growth, and what investments and instructional changes have occurred, then select their top three key messages.

What communications approaches and timing does the guide recommend?

It recommends using multiple channels such as talking points, visuals, meetings, press releases, social media, videos, presentations, town halls/Facebook Live, surveys, blogs/letters, email/text, and signage. It also advises preparing in October via MyIRC Educator Preview and noting media embargo timelines, including the preliminary status until Oct. 30.

Oct 10, 2026

Uploaded by Noah