Meet the Principal
Audubon School will be welcoming a new principal, Ken Fitzner, in April 2012.
John P. Price, Principal
August 2011
Dear Students, Parents, and Community Members,
The staff and leadership at Audubon are prepared and excited for the coming 2011 – 2012 school year. For the past six years, Audubon has been on an incredible journey of school improvement that has made a lasting difference in the lives of hundreds of children and their families. A few of our outstanding accomplishments:
- Audubon has built strong and enduring partnerships with some of Chicago’s finest arts and educational institutions. Redmoon Theater works in classrooms each year providing students with unique art integration experiences. Merit School of Music provides exemplary music education, during and after school, to students in grades PreK-5. And, the Erikson Institute partners with Audubon to provide professional development to teachers where it is most valuable, in the teachers’ classrooms. These partnerships are both reasons for, and examples of, Audubon’s unique programming quality.
- Audubon has developed a reputation as a model school for the inclusion of students with a range of disabilities. We have shown that when students with disabilities are integrated without barriers into general education classrooms, all students can benefit academically and socially. Our commitment to inclusion is a defining characteristic of our school.
- Audubon’s teachers have shown extremely high growth results for students. In 2010, Audubon was among the top five schools when compared to 120 high performing Autonomous (AMP’s) schools in the district for individual student growth rates. In 2011 we had the best growth of all 120 schools in mathematics, and placed amongst the top five for reading growth for the second year in a row. Regardless of where students begin each year academically, they are making remarkable growth.
- Audubon has shown a truly unique level of growth as measured by the annual ISAT test. Since 2007, when Audubon’s overall proficiency rating was just 74%, Audubon has made the most growth of any school in the city that started within that performance range (+/- four points). In 2011, Audubon’s overall proficiency rating reached 93.5%.
- During this same time period Audubon has narrowed all achievement gaps between groups of at-risk students and their peers. For example, students receiving free lunch are now within 2 percentage points of overall school scores in Reading, Math and Science. The academic growth of Audubon’s students has impacted every child in the school. Students with IEPs have made 10 percentage points of growth between 2010 and 2011, closing the achievement gap by over 6% in one year. There are no barriers to success at Audubon for any student.
Teachers and staff at Audubon have made this progress while reaffirming our commitment to strategies for children that focus on inclusive environments for children and integrated subject matter. Audubon has not implemented a “drill and kill” program to get short term test score improvements. Instead, we have made a commitment to a Balanced Literacy approach that relies upon children reading real books for real purposes, not worksheets and textbooks. Children at Audubon do not all read the same book at the same time, but instead have choice about what they read. This is harder for the teachers to manage, but develops authentic reading skills.
And we have resisted the temptation of tracking students into classrooms of different ability levels. Rather than segregating students based upon a test score, we have maintained our commitment to heterogeneous and diverse classrooms of students. We believe that this approach celebrates diversity and recognizes it as a strength, not a weakness.
These strategies and successes reflect our commitment to Audubon’s vision statement, which continues to guide our work:
All students graduating from Audubon will have a clear understanding of their own strengths and passions for learning, allowing each child to identify and pursue his or her individual goals.
This is challenging work that no one teacher, principal, or school can accomplish in isolation. It takes all of us working together with the support of Audubon’s families and community partners. Working together, we will continue to accomplish great things for the children of our community. I look forward to working with all of you this school year.
Sincerely,
John P. Price, Principal