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Peoria's State of the Schools Address Focuses on Solutions

  Peoria Public Schools superintendent Dr. Sharon Desmoulin-Kherat highlighted some successes of the last year in her annual State of the Schools address.

Kherat asked for support in addressing the social and emotional needs of students in her annual State of the Schools report.

She said issues like family trauma and bullying must be addressed for education to be most effective. “Our community and our district has a lot of hurting children and hurting families. We will all agree that every child needs a champion. So I call on the health care, the mental health advocacy organizations and others to provide support for families, especially those that have experienced traumatized situations.”

Internally, the region’s largest urban school district has 22 social workers, 12 psychologists and 25 counselors to create what Dr. Kherat called a safe and welcoming learning environment.

In addressing the school system’s relationship with the broader community Dr Kherat focused on a collaborative called Alignment Peoria.

She said the public school district cannot operate as an island. Rather, it needs creative ideas generated by community leaders in the private and public sectors. “They’ll all get together and then select a long term goal that they can contribute to and then they’ll brainstorm innovative ideas to present to the district.”

The five focus areas are college readiness, career readiness, parental involvement, community involvement and the graduation rate.

Kherat reported the four-year high school graduation rate improved to 68.5 percent, up from 65 percent. She says there were 800 fewer suspensions; the Adopt-A-School program has grown to 95 active partners; and the district deficit has dropped from $12-million to $4-million.