News from District 153

Dear 153 Community:

When I ask staff members what one thing I can give them to help them do their job more effectively they always say, “more time!”

Last Wednesday, we had an Institute Day for staff, where they were able to spend the entire day in professional development sessions with their colleagues. This was a great day of learning for our certified and classified staff.

While Institute Days and Early-Release Days are very important for our staff, I also realize they create challenges for families, especially regarding child-care and work schedules. I want you to know that a lot goes into creating a school calendar. Below is the process we use.

A committee made up of administrators, certified and classified staff meet in January to start the planning process. There are several considerations:

• The state requires that we have 185 days on our calendar. These include:
• 174 student attendance days
• 5 emergency days, to be used if we close due to bad weather
• 4 Institute Days
• 2 Parent-Teacher Conference Days
• We want our Winter Break and Spring Break aligned with Flossmoor 161 and H-F 233
• We want our start date to be the 3rd week of August
• There are 14 state-recognized holidays that we must include

This leaves the committee with deciding where to place our Institute Days and how many Early-Release Days we should have.

• How many Early-Release Days? This year we have 10; in past years we have had as many as 13 and as few as 7. Again, from a staff perspective more is better, but we realize this causes challenges for families. Thus, we struck a balance and settled at 10.
• Why do we have Institute Days and Early-Release Days in the middle of the week, versus on a Friday? This year, we have 5 Fridays, 1 Tuesday, and 4 Wednesdays. The reality is that when these happen on a Friday, our attendance for both students and staff is worse than when we do them in the middle of the week. Since the goal of these days is to help our staff learn, we have better success in the middle of the week. We do have them on Fridays (especially around holidays), but try to avoid using Friday exclusively.

This process is time-consuming and there are many debates before a calendar is presented to the board in February for approval. The 2025/2026 calendar was revised seven times before we settled on the version that was approved. Please know that there is a lot of thought that goes into this, but at the end of the day we want to do the most we can to improve student learning. We appreciate your support as we help our teachers grow.

Warm regards,

Dr. Scott McAlister, Superintendent

THANK YOU to all of you who shared your thoughts about the school district and the next school district superintendent by completing the superintendent search online survey or attending the community forum on Sept. 8th.

Based on that input, SCHOOL EXEC CONNECT, an educational search firm assisting with this process, created a profile of the qualities our community is looking for in its next superintendent.

Click here for the superintendent search profile.

School Exec Connect will now use that profile to vet candidates and present a slate of finalists to the Board of Education to interview. Click here more more information about the process.

Is there a District 153 teacher, staff person or volunteer you think deserves special recognition?

ISBE is accepting nominations for the 2026 Those Who Excel & Teacher of the Year Awards, the program that recognizes outstanding teachers, administrators, school personnel, and volunteers. These awards honor individuals who have made significant contributions to Illinois' public and nonpublic preK-12 schools. All candidates must be nominated before they will be invited to apply.

Any person or organization may submit nominations for outstanding school personnel in their lives. Eligible candidates then will be invited to submit an official application. The deadline to submit a nomination for consideration in the 2026 awards cycle is 11:59 p.m. Oct. 1.

You can learn more about ISBE's TWE & TOY Awards on their webpage.

It's always an exciting time when Churchill School's 5th-graders become eligible to join the beginning band! They got to try out instruments on Sept. 11th to find a good fit.

Churchill School thanks the hundreds of Bulldogs and their loved ones who attended its Open House on Sept. 11th. Those school-family connections are so important to starting the school year off right!

After learning about monarch butterflies (and the letter "M"), Mrs. MacLeod's kindergarten class released their classroom butterfly back into nature.

You and yours are invited to meet us at the Willow School playground at 6:00 PM on Thursday, Sept. 18 to dedicate the playground as a tribute to recently retired school board president, Shelly Marks, who served her community for over 30 years.

Sept. 18: (Willow School) Open House 5:30-7:00PM

Sept. 26: (Willow School) Picture Day

Oct. 2: No School-Yom Kippur

Oct. 3: No School-Fall Break

Oct. 13: No School-Indigenous Peoples' Day

Oct. 14: School Board Meeting, 7:00 PM

Oct. 31: Early Dismissal