Gurnee School District 56

Providing innovative professional development: The district has experienced success in developing innovative professional development systems for teachers and staff, such as differentiation of professional development according to the competencies of the teacher, micro-credentialing, and the gamification of professional development as seen in the development of the D56 Tech Trek.

Teaching coding in all grade levels: Coding is being taught in all grade levels in core content classes ensuring every student with the opportunity to learn how to code, as Gurnee School District 56 continues to build digital curriculum partnerships that enable the district to guide and direct the future development of their software products.

Assessing daily instruction with data analytics: The district is in the process of creating advanced data analytics to inform instruction on a daily basis through a partnership with the Northwest Evaluation Association; the growth target data received for each student is stored in a brand-new data warehouse system called Otus.