Monenie-Mone High School Research Paper

Crete-Monee High School is a high school located in Crete, Illinois, for teenagers in ninth through twelfth grade. All public schools in Crete are managed by Crete Monee Community Unit School District 201U, which is a unit school district which combines elementary, middle, and high schools. Serving the village of Crete are: * Crete Elementary School (pre-kindergarten through 5th grade) * Crete Monee Sixth Grade Center (6th grade) * Crete Monee Middle School (7th & 8th grade) * Crete Monee High School (9th through 12th grades)
The current high school building was completed in 2007 at a cost of $160 million. The old building had been used since 1954, and currently houses the Crete-Monee Sixth Grade Center on its main floor;
the second story and bottom floor are no longer in use. The school is located in Will County, and is part of a unit district. The school has 1,555+ students this year and has an attendance rate of 90.3%. The 2008 graduation rate was 96.7%, higher than the state average of 86.5%.

STUDENT INFORMATION
Information reported on the Crete-Monee school report card concerning the racial makeup of the school is as follows:

RACIAL/ETHNIC BACKGROUND (%) White 29.4Black 63.9Multiracial .5 Native American .3Asian/Pacific Islander 1.0Hispanic 5.0District Instructional Expenditure
Per Pupil (2006-07):$4,769 | ADDITIONAL INFORMATION (%)Limited EnglishProficient .3Low Income 39.1Mobility 20.2 |

This information reveals a fairly diverse student culture, with better than average daily attendance.
TEACHERS/ADMINISTRATION
An analysis of the teaching staff shows that the average experience of the staff is 10.4 years.
Average teacher salary is $54,459. 39.9 have master’s degrees or above. In spite of these numbers, Crete-Monee high School is known throughout the south suburban Chicago land area as a “get in and get out’ school district. Every year the high school suffers from a rather large teacher turnover. This school year 34 new teachers were hired to replace teachers who retired or simply “moved on’ to other districts. According to statistics this has been a trend in the district for nearly 10 years, owing to the pay scale, and weak teachers’ union. As a result of this, there has been a disjointed, ever changing method of doing things on a day to day basis. Because of the rotating staff and administration, many policies, up till this year, were either not in place or not enforced. Parents were not very involved, and students were not held consistently accountable for infractions that stopped short of dangerous behavior or violent activity. Currently, the new administrative team is attempting to rectify this. They have made parent meetings mandatory, and did not register students whose parents did not attend the initial summertime meetings. There is an entirely new discipline code in place and strictly enforced. A new Dean of Students has been added strictly to handle freshmen
students.

BUDGET

The district operating budget indicates that 20% of annual expenditures are for teacher salary while student support and instructional costs are at a combined total of 14.5%.
AYP

Crete-Monee High School is not making Adequate Yearly Progress as it relates to NCLB. The school has not made AYP in reading nor math and is in year 5 of academic watch status. This could lead to state take over if the school does not improve. In all testing subjects combined, 32.30% fit the meets or exceeds category for state testing.
COMMUNITY
There approximately 7,346 people, residing in the village, according to the village hall register. 34% of families in the village have children under the age of 18 years old. The median household income for families is about $74,000.
Crete-Monee is a low crime area, but has in recent years shown an increase in gang related crime and activity. In recent years there has been an influx of African-American families to the village and the surrounding are from Chicago. This has created a more diversity within the community, especially the schools.
The Crete-Monee school district has recently entered created a first response partnership with police, fire and emergency services that is a model for other school districts around the country. As a result the security and safety protocols the high school has are nearly unparalleled.
CONCLUSION
Crete-Monee High School is a school in a state of flux. In comparison to city school of comparable size, they are far ahead in the use of technology and have a brand new campus, but they are behind in having cohesion in their building policies and day to day activities. There is a renewed effort to rectify this, placing a lot of pressure on teachers across the board. Meeting AYP has become the main focus of the district administration via increasing test scores and focusing on student achievement using current research in student assessment, reading and writing. In spite of this, there is still a gulf in relationship to school-community partnership, though the current principal has vowed to make this a priority for the second half of this school year.