Ms. Andrea Anderson
Assistant Superintendent

Academics are our top priority in Oak Lawn-Hometown School District 123. The Assistant Superintendent is responsible for oversight of the district’s instructional program, professional development, assessment, technology, and parent education opportunities. Our curriculum is designed to provide variety, depth, and breadth throughout the content areas. Instructional practice emphasizes critical, analytical, and creative thinking in the fundamental learning areas of reading, language arts, math, science, social studies, fine arts, physical development and health, computer literacy, and in the middle school, foreign languages. District 123 curriculum is aligned with the State Goals for Learning and Illinois Learning Standards and is assessed using Illinois Standard Assessment Tests (ISAT) as well as several local assessments.

ASSESSMENTS
Students in District 123 schools take many tests or assessments over the course of the year. Every assessment has its own purpose and provides different kinds of information. There are two types of assessments that are used in most schools: summative and formative. Summative assessments are typically those standardized high-stakes tests that are given to measure benchmark learning standards. Summative testing occurs after instruction and is best used for accountability; it provides motivation for students and teachers alike to do their best work. Summative evaluation is designed to answer the question "Did students learn?"

Formative evaluation is the process of assessing students during instruction for the purposes of determining whether an instructional program is effective for individual students. Formative evaluation is designed to answer the question, "Are students learning?"

In Illinois, students in grades 3-8 take the ISAT (Illinois Standards Achievement Test) at the beginning of March each year. The ISAT is a summative evaluation that measures a student's mastery of concepts and skills related to the Illinois Learning Standards.

District 123 also administers the NWEA Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test to students in grades 3-8. The MAP test is administered twice during the year (fall and spring) and gives specific kinds of information not available from ISAT scores. MAP assessment results are used to help teachers provide appropriate instruction and measure student progress and growth in the areas of reading and math.

The Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA2) is administered three times a year (fall, winter, spring) to all students in grades K-5 and identified students in grades 6-8. This assessment provides teachers with information on the reading levels of the students in their classrooms.

AIMSweb is a formative assessment that informs the instructional process as it occurs by identifying at-risk students as early as possible, and more importantly, those students who are learning and those who are not progressing satisfactorily. This assessment is administered three times a year (fall, winter, spring) to students in grade K-8.

AIMSweb: August 30-September 10; January 10-21; May 2-13
DRA2: September 7-24; January 5-26; May 2-20
NWEA/MAP: September 27-October 15; April 26-May 20
ISAT: March 1-11