District still short of funds
By Michael S. Hoey
Correspondent
The Delavan-Darien School District won a much-needed $1.25 million referendum to exceed revenue caps for operational costs on Feb. 17. Superintendent Robert Crist and School Board members said Monday they are grateful, but the district’s financial challenges are not over.
“”I thank those that supported the referendum,” President Jeff Scherer said. “It was a great victory for the district.”
“I am real pleased enough people came out and voted for it,” Crist said. “Without it, we would really be in trouble.”
“It is a glimmer of hope,” Crist said. “Thank you to everyone who supported it. Some people had to make some hard choices with the economy the way it is.”
Despite the victory, the district received less optimistic news about state aid when Gov. Scott Walker announced his budget proposal for the next two years. The proposal calls for no increase in state aid and a $150 per student decrease in funding that will equate to a $406,000 budget deficit for the district. The budget calls for no cost of living increase in state funding.
In response to the governor’s proposal, the board approved a resolution similar to one other districts have passed encouraging the governor and Legislature to revise the budget to restore school funding to adequate levels, include no decreases in revenue and provide for inflationary increases.
Board members also said changes will have to be made in how the district offers summer school even with the passage of the referendum. Crist said the district lost $130,000 on summer school last year and cannot continue to offer it at that kind of loss. The board approved a plan by Crist to scale back enrichment offering and focus on credit recovery and remedial classes. Crist said the classes will be very hands-on and project-based as a way to attract students.
Board approved GLAD
The board approved a proposal to expand a protocol already used in the district’s dual language program to regular classrooms in an effort to improve math and reading scores. The program is called Guided Language Acquisition Design and has been used in the dual language program since its start but is a protocol that can be used in the regular classroom as well.
Rebecca Zahn, directing principal at Turtle Creek Elementary School, said math and reading scores for the total school population have fallen since fall testing but scores for the dual language students have actually improved. Zahn said the GLAD protocol could be applied school-wide as a way to improve scores.
Zahn said she and others looked at data from an elementary school in New Mexico that has demographics even more extreme than Delavan-Darien’s. That school uses GLAD school-wide with great success. It went from scoring an “F” on New Mexico’s version of a state report card to a “C” in one year.
The cost to implement the protocol would be $36,363 for staff training. The protocol would be very hands-on and interactive with students moving on to new activities every 30 minutes.
Zahn and Director of Language Acquisition and Community Education Ron Sandoval asked for approval to bring GLAD to Turtle Creek Elementary. Board member Steve Logterman asked why not bring the program Wileman and Darien as well. Sandoval was asked to put together a proposal to bring GLAD to all three elementary schools for the April board meeting.
