High Achieving Students of Color

It’s no secret that the achievement gap between white students and students of color has been an issue of contention for many years. And while that gap has shrunken in the last decade or so, it’s still far from being where it should be. The City of Evanston is no different. Even with its high-performing schools and the students who attend them, the achievement gap in Evanston is notably wide and many attempts throughout the years have done little to close that gap. 

That’s where Jacqueline Petrof stepped in. Jacqueline is a second-grade math teacher at Dawes Elementary in Evanston. She saw that her students' math test scores were low and decided to do something about it. “I had been wanting to launch this after school program for a while, but with three daughters, I never had the time to do it,” Petrof said.

“One of the reasons why I love teaching word problems myself is because I would cry,” Petrof said. Having immigrated to the United States from Guatemala at six and English not being her native language, Petrof would shut down at the thought of solving the complex problem.

According to data from the Educational Opportunity Project (EOP), while Black and Hispanic students in District 65 are performing at higher rates than several years ago, Hispanic students are scoring at the national average, while Black students are performing at 0.85 grade levels below the national average.

To continue to address this issue, Petrof and her team have been working to break down some of the ‘misconceptions’ students and their parents have about math. She says there are a lot of behaviors that have to be untaught, which means starting from scratch.

At the beginning of the year, Petrof and her team assess each student. The results of the assessment then advise the team on where students are placed within the program. Petrof says the one thing she wants people to understand about the program is that everything is data driven.

“It’s data driven on who’s going to be in, on what I’m going to teach, and it’s aligned to the standards the [the students] need to learn,” Petrof said. 

Since launching the program in October, the response from parents and students have been positive, with some noting an uptick in their child’s testing scores. All good news to Petrof, who hopes to continue operating the High Achieving Students of Color program beyond this year, so future students can benefit. 

And with all of the good that came from the initiative, Petrof said the greatest thing that stemmed from this was the opportunity to work with her daughter, who applied for the Foundation 65 grant with her.

“My daughter loves math,” Petrof said. “She used her math skills, as well as her Spanish to give back to her community, and she hasn’t left the program.” 

What was supposed to be a several week stint has turned into a years-long worth of commitment and dedication for Petrof’s daughter, who will be a senior at Evanston Township High School next year. 

“My daughter is very shy, so I was surprised how she was able to come out of her shell and connect with our students and families,” Petrof said.