W E D N E S D A Y
March 29, 2023 Vol. 43, No. 35
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D97 dreams up their ideal graduate District begins to draw ‘portrait of a graduate’ in ‘community-driven vision’ By AMARIS E. RODRIGUEZ Staff Reporter
Oak Park Elementary School District 97 is hitting the drawing board to create a “Portrait of an Oak Park 8th Grade Graduate” and using the model to lay the groundwork for their new communitydriven vision of who their graduates should be. During the District 97 board meeting March 14, Supt. Dr. Ushma Shah, who was hired by the district in February 2022, presented the model to the board as part of planning for the 2023-2024 school year. “In Oak Park we can feel so proud that we made the courageous moves when it was time to make them,” Shah said. “To say, ‘let’s start to shift’ and ‘let’s recognize that the system that we have needs to continue to grow and evolve’ so it can be all that we envision it to be for our students.” The coming changes will be a way of answering how the system can be adjusted to meet the curSee D97 GRADUATE on page 21
Taking a Bow OP-RF Symphony debuts local composer’s work
TODD A BANNOR
Cellist Alex Groesch rehearses his own symphony, premiering at Symphony Center in Chicago when the Symphony of Oak Park & River Forest performs a concert there on April 3. See story, page 16.
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