District 100 Knowledge Base (Admin and Clerical)

    5 Essentials SOP

    (Updated 2025 Information as of 2/20/2025)

    Administration Window: 2024-2025 WILL RUN FROM FEBRUARY 18 THROUGH MARCH 28, 2025. 

    5Essentials is an evidence-based system designed to drive improvement in schools nationwide—it reliably measures changes in a school organization through the 5Essentials Survey and provides individualized, actionable Reports for each school. The 5Essentials system is based on more than 20 years of research by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research on five components found to be critical for school success:
     

    • Effective Leaders: The principal works with teachers to implement a clear and strategic vision for school success.
    • Collaborative Teachers: Teachers collaborate to promote professional growth..
    • Involved Families: The entire school staff builds strong relationships with families and communities to support learning.
    • Supportive Environment: The school is safe and orderly. Teachers have high expectations for students and support students to realize their goals. Classmates also support one another.
    • Ambitious Instruction: Classes are academically demanding and engage students by emphasizing the application of knowledge.


    The 5Essentials Survey is taken by all prekindergarten through 12th-grade teachers and all fourth- through 12th-grade students and usually requires no more than 30 minutes to complete. The information collected through the survey is rigorously reviewed and analyzed to generate a 5Essentials Report for each school. The 5Essentials Report includes a breakdown of teacher and student responses and, most importantly, provides a comprehensive picture of the school environment based on five essential areas critical for school improvement in a meaningful context of similar and successful schools.

    Updated 2025 Information as of 2/20/25
    5 Essentials Survey Admin Manual 

    Survey Confidentiality

    Survey Log In Procedures

    Teacher Provisional Login

    Roster Removals

    5 Essentials Survey Communications Kit

    ISBE Link

    5 Essentials Overview

    IL 5 Essentials FAQ

    IL 5 Essentials Family and Student Questions Link

    Boosting Parent Participation - Tip Sheet

    1. 1

      Teacher Notification Letter

      Central Office (HR Department) sends the 5 Essentials Initial Notification Letter to certified staff members (prior to the survey window opening) and SOP/process information is shared with principals prior to teacher notification/letters being sent.

      Initial Teacher Letter
    2. 2

      Teacher Emails

      Survey administration begins FEBRUARY 18, 2025 .  On that day, teachers will receive an email with unique username and password to log-in to the survey and participate. All responses are completely confidential. No names or other unique identifiers are connected with individual responses or used in any report.

      ISBE/UCHICAGOImpact

      Provisional Login
      Those who were not included in the intial email from 5 Essentials  may take the survey provisionally at survey.5-essentials.org/illinois/survey/teacher/provi...

      We recommend that educators be employed for 45 school days prior to taking the survey. 

      Provisional submissions will be reconciled at the close of the survey window and, like a standard survey submission, these submissions will count towards the school's 5Essentials Report. 
    3. 3

      Teacher Reminder

      Building principals send the teacher reminder letter to certified staff the first week of March to remind them to complete the 5 Essentials Survey if they have not done so already.
    4. 4

      Student Process (Grades 4-12 Only)

      Individual participation in the Illinois 5Essentials Survey is completely voluntary. However, schools must achieve a 95% percent response rate from students and/or a 50 percent response rate from instructional staff (teachers as defined in notification letter) to qualify for full reporting points. Therefore, it is important to encourage complete participation from both teachers and students.

      Also, if a student does not wish to answer specific questions, he/she may skip them by clicking “Next” at the bottom of the survey screen. Teachers may also skip questions if they do not wish to answer.

      Students log in (log in info, sent to your email previously) using their student ID and their date of birth. Students who don't have a student ID yet or have other problems logging into the system can log in provisionally. Underneath the login page for students, click the link that says "Click here to take the provisional survey". Like the provisional login for teachers, students will be asked questions that will help us identify if this student belongs to this school.

      From the survey administration dashboard, you can view and download the student roster to assist the student log in process. (Admin/Supt)

      Provisional Login
      Students that aren’t on your roster may take the provisional survey at survey.5-essentials.org/illinois/survey/student/provi...

      Students may have to select their survey language and paste the link a second time to access the provisional login page.

      Students should be enrolled for at least 45 days prior to taking the survey, and this link is ONLY to be used by students that are not on the roster for their school. Schools who use the provisional login to administer the student survey en masse will have those submissions invalidated.

      Student OPT OUT Letter
      Prior to the school designated student survey window (within the given timeframe listed above) principals/admin send home information about the survey, when students will take the survey, and clarify that if parents wish for their child NOT to complete the survey they need to fill out the given form/letter (English/Spanish).
    5. 5

      Parent Notification and Opt Out Letter

      Building principals or designee sends the 5 Essentials Parent Notification Letter to families and/or guardians in January (newsletter) (prior to the survey window opening).

      Parent Information  - all students
      Opt Out Letter - send home with Gr. 4-12 only

      Parental Opt-Out: Parents can still have the right to opt-out their children’s participation in the survey; however, there will no longer be a parental opt-out code for participation in the survey for data reporting purposes. While parents have the right to opt-out, the accountability system counts participation/non-participation in the survey for every student. A parental opt-out does not remove students from the participation count for accountability purposes. This is not a change in past practice, it is only removing this code as it potentially gave districts the impression these students with parental opt-outs would not be counted in the accountability system, and these students were always counted in the non-participation category for accountability purposes.

    6. 6

      Parent Survey

      A school’s parent count will be based on the total number of students (preK-12) at that school. The parent survey takes approximately 10-15 minutes to complete. All surveys must be completed in one sitting. Each school is encouraged to have a 23% (takes into effect a 3% error rate) participation rate from its parents/families.

      Parents may skip any questions they do not wish to answer. While partial responses are counted towards a school's response rate, please encourage parents to click submit they've reached the end of the survey. Surveys cannot be retrieved once submitted. For this reason, please encourage parents to take their time when responding to the survey.

      Parents are encouraged to organize by using their local PTA, public library, or other
      available avenues to participate in the survey.
      To complete the parent survey, please instruct parents to:
      • Visit survey.5-essentials.org/Illinois/and select Parent Survey.
      • Select the necessary language to complete the survey.
      • (English or Spanish).
      • Enter email address and county of your child’s school.
      • Advance to survey questions.
      • Answer all applicable questions.
      • Click Submit Survey.
      Notes: Parents have the option to leave their email address so that we can send them confirmation of survey completion upon submission of the parent survey supplement. That text box can be left blank if the parent doesn’t want to provide or have an email address.
    7. 7

      Questions/Contact Info

      Please contact 5Essentials Client Services at 5Essentials@isbe.net or ISBE Department of Wellness at (217) 782-5270   
    8. 8

      End