SCHS is now offering free, after-school tutoring opportunities for interested high school students. Each weekday afternoon from 3:15 – 4:15, a teacher will be scheduled to work with interested students in the HS library on questions, homework, credit recovery, etc. At the end of each tutoring session, if needed, transportation home will be provided for students. The program is being funded through a federal grant called the 21st Century Community Learning Center Grant, and there will be no cost to the students that participate.
This federal grant was written and secured by our local Regional Office of Education in Atkinson. The three-year grant will provide resources to pay for tutors, a site coordinator and eventually, additional after school-programs for students and parents.
Bryan Blanks, a graduate of Wethersfield High School and Monmouth College has been hired by the Regional Office in a partnership with District 100, to serve as site coordinator at SCHS. It will be Bryan’s job to survey students and parents, and to determine which after-school (or summer-time) programs might be of most interest and most benefit to them. According to Bryan “the 21st Century program is an excellent way to increase academic performance and to build upon skills students can take out into the workforce and community.” After-school tutoring is just the first phase of a program.
Because one of the goals of the grant is to develop programs for students AND parents, Bryan is already working with teachers and peers to come up ideas for potential night classes for parents to increase skill levels in regards to computer programs, iPads, etc.
During the week of Jan. 9th, surveys from Bryan were sent out to SCHS parents. If you received a survey form and have already filled it out and returned it - thank you. If you have not returned your survey, please fill it out and return it to Bryan Blanks at the High School, 418. S. Franklin, in Toulon. We look forward to your input and your participation as this new program develops and evolves.
And once again, thank you for helping to make our schools, “a place where everybody is somebody.”
New Illinois legislation is about to have a major impact on the lives of teachers, administrators and school board members. The Education Reform Act (SB7) and the Performance Evaluation Reform Act (SB315) will make numerous changes to how teachers are hired, evaluated, laid off and terminated. The legislation will change the way principals are evaluated and will require data-based measurements of student growth. Some changes will take place immediately, while other changes do not go into effect until 2016.
Changes include:
During collective bargaining, new impasse procedures and new strike pre-requisites now apply. Both changes are intended to reduce the chance of a work stoppage.
Board members are now required to receive at least four hours of training on education law, financial oversight and accountability, and fiduciary responsibilities.
Teacher certificates of “unsatisfactory” teachers are subject to suspension or revocation by the state board of education.
New and vacant teaching positions must be filled based on performance/qualifications, not just seniority.
Updated evaluation systems for teachers must include categories for excellent, proficient, needs improvement and unsatisfactory.
New law pertaining to causal dismissals of tenured teachers takes effect.
Joint committees comprised of an equal number of teachers and administrators will be created to develop protocol for implementing a new system of Reduction in Force.
Reduction in Force is now based primarily on performance evaluations and not seniority.
Evaluators have to be pre-qualified by the state board of education through a new and lengthy process of required training.
By 2012-2013, schools must administer “surveys of learning conditions” at least twice a year in order to measure the schools’ learning environment.
Beginning in the fall of 2012 for administrators, and the fall of 2016 for teachers, up to 50% of an individual’s performance evaluation will be based on student growth data.
After Sept. 2016, new tenure track rules will go into effect for newly hired teachers.
These represent just a few of the many and often controversial statutory changes made during the last couple of legislative sessions. The new legislation will require principals to spend much more time collecting data, conferencing with teachers, developing assessment tools, measuring performance and completing paper work. If the changes result in greater student achievement and increased readiness for college and the work-force, then it will have been worth it. Although somewhat dubious about the relative merit of some of the changes, teachers and administrators in our district will work to implement the changes for the success of students.
Some of the information for this article was taken in part from sources including, but not limited to 1) Robert B. McCoy writing in the Nov. 10, 2011 “School Law Advisor” and 2) Hodges, Loizzi, Eisenhammer, Roddick & Kohn LLP, and the Illinois Association of School Administrators in “Employment of Teachers in Illinois Post Education Reform”(Aug. 2011).
You may have read or heard recently that the legislature in Illinois has approved the creation of a school district consolidation commission and has charged that commission with “making recommendations to the Governor and the General Assembly on the number of school districts in the State, the optimal enrollment for each school district, and recommendations as to where consolidation may be beneficial.”
Where did this start? Well, earlier this year, as a proposed cost saving measure, the governor “suggested” a significant reduction in the number of school districts in Illinois. His argument was that Illinois currently has too many school districts (869) and that by reducing the number of districts, taxpayers could not only save money on duplicative administrative costs, but by creating districts of “optimal” size, students would be afforded more opportunities and choices. The governor suggested that 300 school districts would be a reasonable number and that the state could best determine which districts should consolidate. The governor suggested that by making this move the state could save $100,000,000 in administrative costs over the next two years.
When pushed to defend how it came up with its savings estimate, the governor’s office had no real answers. The same was true when asked how it was determined that 300 school districts would be an optimal number. The governor’s initiative on forced consolidation, subsequently, led to a groundswell of grassroots opposition and resulted merely in the creation of a commission charged with making a non-binding recommendation to the General Assembly.
The commission is led by Lieutenant Governor Sheila Simon, who is calling the panel the “Classrooms First Commission”. The commission had its first meeting on Thursday, September 29 at the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) offices in Springfield. The second meeting is scheduled for October 21, also at the ISBE. I believe that the meeting closest to Stark County will be on November 2nd at Black Hawk College in Moline. (Building 4, Conference Rooms 1 and 2; 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m).
I urge you to attend one or more of the planned meetings and to voice your thoughts on the possibility of forced consolidation. You see, there probably are a number of districts in our state that could consolidate. You can probably think of some specific examples in central Illinois. Intuitively, we all know that these small districts must not be providing the best “bang for the buck”, and the best opportunities for their kids - but sometimes our intuitions are wrong.
Let’s look at District 100 for example: Last year, despite having about 40% of our students identified as low income, our elementary students exceeded the state average in overall performance on all state tests by over 10%! Our junior high school students exceeded the state average on all state tests by almost 15%, and our high school student’s overall performance on the PSAE exceeded the state average in Reading, Math and Science!
Additionally, the instructional expenditure per pupil for District 100 was about $1000 less than the state average and the operating expense per pupil was about $2000 less than the state average. Small districts, like ours, often provide a value and a return on investment that larger school districts don’t always enjoy.
Back in 1940, Illinois had over 12,000 school districts. That number has been reduced to 869 through local decision-making where the real stakeholders were able to determine when and with whom their districts might consolidate. There may certainly be benefits and cost savings associated with school consolidation, (we should always consider options for sharing resources and eliminating duplicative costs) but those decisions are best left to the local taxpayers who have knowledge of, and a stake in their schools’ success – not to the state-level bureaucrats that can’t even balance their own budgets.
Once again, thank you for your help and your support with all of our programs.
