August 13, 2025 Update
Good afternoon,
School starts on Monday, August 25! Less than two weeks away!
At the Board of Education meeting on Monday, August 11, the Board of Education approved a bond proposal for the November ballot. The bond proposal would ask our community to keep our millage rate the same in order to generate revenue to support a variety of projects in our district. The projects are separated into two major categories and include the following:
Building for the Future:
Providing safe and functional spaces that support and enhance educational programs.
- Add air-conditioning to all remaining schools that need it.
- Improve safety and security by installing electronic door locks for all classrooms.
- Enhance entry circulation and safety by improving students' experiences and strengthen safety at Rockford HS and East Rockford MS.
- Gym and/or cafeterias will be added to all remaining elementary schools to allow them all to have separate gym and cafeteria spaces.
- Update aging infrastructure, such as: mechanical, electrical, plumbing, roofs, and outdated systems.
- Enhance outdoor facilities (restrooms, seating, entry/exit) to improve community experience.
- Update technology infrastructure.
- Playground equipment upgrades to all remaining schools.
- Replace aging buses to maintain the replacement cycle to keep the bus fleet modern and safe.
Advancing Excellence:
Creating learning environments that enhance innovation and opportunity.
- Performing Arts Center renovation: new seats, stage, walls and interior improvements.
- Construction of the Ram Center: indoor turf fieldhouse for athletics, fine arts and community recreation. Classroom spaces for digital media, sports marketing and business programming.
- Career exploration classrooms at Rockford HS: expanding hands-on learning through Robotics, Skilled Trades, STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) and Health Sciences.
- Enhance students' experiences: renovating student-centered collaboration spaces.
- Early childhood renovations: updating spaces to enhance programs for our youngest learners and to enhance safety.
- Update educational technology.
Over the next several weeks, information will be shared on the details of this proposal. You can also find information on our website: RPS Bond Proposal 2025 - Our District - Rockford Public Schools
It is important to note that keeping the rate the same allows us to generate the revenue needed to support these facility improvements, needed maintenance, improve technology, and replace buses. While the rate will stay the same, what a taxpayer pays is based on the value of a property. In Rockford, property values have been rising. Those rising property values allow us to generate the revenue needed to support these projects.
The state budget is not yet complete. As we enter this school year our district, like every district in the state, does not know what their budget will be.
One of the major impacts of not knowing the budget surrounds the uncertainty of school breakfast and lunch. We will begin the school year as we ended last year with free breakfast and lunch. That will last through September 30. At that point, if there is no state budget, we may have to make a change. But for now, we will have no change in our breakfast and lunch program to start the school year.
The next few days will be busy ones in our district.
- Parkside Early Childhood Center staff moved into the new early childhood center on August 12.
- New staff orientation was August 13-15.
- Staff Welcome Back is August 20-21.
- Parking lots at the Freshman Center and stadium parking lot are complete.
- The first phase of the interior renovation to the Freshman Center is on track.
- Final interior updates to North Rockford Middle School are being completed.
Our athletic teams started formal practice on August 11. Our Rockford High School marching band is hard at work on their 2025 program.
Our elementary open house events will occur in August. Information is available on each school's webpage.
As we enjoy the last few weeks of summer our Rockford Public Schools’ staff is excited about the new school year and welcoming back students!
Steve
Dr. Steve Matthews
Superintendent
Rockford Public Schools
Parkside Discussion:
Questions about Teacher Collaboration
This document is intended to answer questions that have arisen as we have begun a conversation about repurposing Parkside Elementary to an Early Childhood Center.
The importance of teacher collaboration:
When schools have only one teacher per grade level, students miss out on the advantages of a collaborative teaching team working together daily. This includes teamwork, shared expertise, and differentiated instruction. Having at least two grade level sections in each building where teachers are collaborating together ensures that every child receives a high-quality, well-rounded environment that supports their learning.
1. Stronger Teaching Through Collaboration and Consistency in Learning
- When teachers work together in a building, they easily share ideas, lesson plans, and strategies that help improve instruction for all students.
- Research shows that when teachers collaborate, student achievement improves significantly (Visible Learning, Hattie, 2009).
- With multiple teachers at the same grade level, all students at a grade level in the building receive a similar, high-quality education.
- Schools that follow the Professional Learning Community (PLC) model (DuFour, 2004) see higher student success rates because teachers meet regularly to discuss student progress and adjust instruction based on data.
- Research (Ingersoll & Strong, 2011) shows that when teachers work in teams, they are less stressed, more motivated, and stay in the profession longer.
2. Better Support for Different Learning Needs
- Every child learns differently, and when multiple teachers work together, they can group students flexibly to give them more personalized instruction.
- Struggling students get extra help, and advanced learners receive challenges that keep them engaged.
- Studies on differentiated instruction (Tomlinson, 2001) show that when teaching is tailored to a student’s level, learning improves dramatically.
- When teachers work as a grade level team, they can identify areas where students are struggling and quickly provide support to keep them on track.
- Common assessments across classrooms help ensure that every child is making progress and getting the support they need.
- In multi-section grades, students may have opportunities to interact with different teachers, which helps them adapt to different teaching styles and personalities.
- Flexible grouping across classrooms allows students to work with peers at similar academic levels, keeping them challenged and engaged.
