A diagnostic assessment of a school's culture and climate designed to identify organizational strengths and areas of opportunity on the five essential factors that drive school improvement.

The survey results are categorized by each Essential score (from Least to Most Implementation) and an overall performance score (from Not Yet Organized to Well-Organized).

For the 2018-19 survey, Northbrook 28 schools are Well-Organized or Organized (highest categories). Every building has all five of the Essentials at or above the benchmark score. The 2019-20 survey results will be released in October, 2020.

Schools that are at or above benchmark (average, more and/or most implementation) on three or more Essentials are 10 times more likely to show substantial gains in student learning over time than schools that are below the benchmark.

These are significantly strong results, demonstrating that Northbrook 28 is positioned for continued growth in teaching and improvement in student learning.

Effective Leaders: Leaders work with teachers to implement a clear and strategic vision for school success.
Collaborative Teachers: Teachers collaborate to promote professional growth.
Involved Families: The entire school staff builds strong relationships with families and communities to support learning.
Supportive Environment: The school is safe and orderly. Teachers have high expectations for students and support students to realize their goals. Classmates also support one another.
Ambitious Instruction: Classes are academically demanding and engage students by emphasizing the application of knowledge.

The 5Essentials survey may help inform state policy and improvement initiatives. It is also used across schools in Illinois, to gather data for culture and climate.

The 5Essentials is primarily intended to help local administrators, such as teachers, principals, and superintendents, to identify strengths and areas for growth at the district and school level.
Aggregated data from the survey will also be shared with parents and the general public on school report cards released in the fall.

The 5Essentials Survey is taken by all pre-kindergarten through 12th grade teachers, taking approximately 30 minutes to complete. All fourth through 12th grade students participate in the 5Essentials Survey, usually requiring no more than 30 minutes to complete. Parents are also invited to take the survey, but input on parents survey is not factored into the 5Essentials cumulative score since participation is much lower.

The survey window is generally November through January. 

• Most implementation/Well-Organized (at least 1.5 standard deviations above the benchmark)
• More implementation/Organized (between 0.5-1.5 standard deviations above the benchmark)
• Average implementation/Moderately Organized (above -0.5 standard deviations & below 0.5 standard deviations above the benchmark)
• Less implementation/Partially Organized (0.5-1.5 standard deviations below the benchmark)
• Least implementation/Not Yet Organized (at least 1.5 standard deviations below the benchmark)
  
  Each essential is comprised of ‘Measures’ and ‘Measures’ are comprised of ‘Items.'
  

View the report for any school in the state on the Illinois 5Essentials website.

View the District 28 report prepared for the Board of Education Sept. 24, 2019.