Avoca School District 37 - Wilmette, Illinois

Avoca School District #37 is located in the northern suburbs of Chicago and serves students from four surrounding communities:  Glenview, Northfield, Wilmette, and Winnetka.  There are two exemplary schools in the district, serving approximately 700 students.  Avoca West is the kindergarten through 5th grade elementary school, while Marie Murphy School houses the students in grades 6th through 8th.

Avoca is truly a unique learning community.  Its small, intimate size makes it possible for teachers to know their students and families very well.  The Avoca schools have become the hub of much of the community life that enriches its residents (e.g., in music, scouting, youth and adult athletic organizations, and League of Women Voters activities).

Avoca is one of the most culturally and socio-economically diverse districts in the generally affluent, high-performing “North Shore” of Chicago.  Enrollment demographics range from multi-million dollar estates, to subsidized apartment housing, and Asian-American, Eastern European, and Spanish families comprise more than 40 percent of the student population.  This omnipresent diversity is embraced with pride and is often celebrated throughout the school year.

A basic value in Avoca is that only a process of continuous improvement will truly lead to sustained excellence.  In other words, there is no such thing as the status quo; if you are not continually moving forward, you are actually falling behind.  This is why the District embarked on a new strategic planning process during the final year of the 2003-2007 strategic plan. All constituent groups of the Avoca community including teachers, administrators, parents, school board, and community joined forces to create a plan that drives all district decision-making. With our plan in place, the quest toward excellence continues unabated.

Avoca School District 37 demonstrates cutting edge classrooms and rich technology integration through meeting nationally recognized essential conditions.  The Superintendent leads the district with vision and support in all technology endeavors.  The school board encourages the technology team to innovate while collaborating in long term technology implementation planning. The student technology literacy skills were rewritten to ensure that students not only meet, but also exceed the NETS for students.  After the NETS for students were updated in 2007, a committee of teachers and technology facilitators met to rewrite the district student technology literacy skills.  The team used the new NETS for students as the guide for developing technology literacy skills for each grade level kindergarten through eighth grade.   Every grade now has a specific focus for content area instruction through the following NETS:  creativity and innovation; communication and collaboration; research and information fluency; critical thinking, problem solving and decision-making; digital citizen citizenship; and technology operations and concepts.  Avoca now has a guide to prepare students to be able to learn effectively and live productively in an increasingly digital world.