The Illinois Report Card for 2022-2023 will be released around the end of October. The report card covers how students performed on the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR), demographic information for your school district, and financial information on your school district, including site-based expenditure reporting for each school in the district on a per-pupil basis. We’ve talked about this information before, and the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has released a toolkit for districts hosting a community financial meeting.

Even if your school district is not hosting a community financial meeting, you and your PTA can use the toolkit materials to better understand the financial information on the Illinois Report Card for your school district. The toolkit contains:

  • A facilitator’s guide to hosting a financial community meeting
  • A PowerPoint slide deck template that discusses how to use the Illinois Report Card information in a presentation and what it means
  • A FAQ about school finance and the reporting requirements of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)

The toolkit can also help start a conversation with your school district about school finance and equity issues. If your school district is not hosting a community financial meeting, pointing the toolkit out to district leadership (e.g., superintendent and school board members) and indicating that PTA members are interested in hearing the district’s view on the financial data reported on the Illinois Report Card may spur them to host a meeting.

With Illinois requiring all school districts to offer full-day kindergarten, school finance issues could be an engaging topic of conversation if your school district currently only offers half-day kindergarten. School finance issues regarding adequate funding and the Evidence-Based Funding formula could also be of interest if your district is below its adequate funding target. Check out the toolkit today and the Illinois Report Card at the end of the month, and start a conversation with your school district on how best to financially support and educate all students in your district.